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Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 06:59
by Vipul

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 08:19
by Hiten
an old documentary about Satyendra Nath Bose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeZ7QYq3tzs

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 13:19
by Hiten
a report about Dr. Archana Sharma who is a permanent staffer at CERN working on the CMS expt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LoX3AwFtec

wonder why news channels addressing her as "of Indian-origin". Her website still states she is an Indian Scientist, unless she hasn't updated it since the change.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 18:17
by Vipul
God! Why did world forget Boson’s father?

As Cern scientists pop the champagne in celebration of finding the Higgs boson, an Indian scientist after whom the God particle is named remains in virtual oblivion.

Media reports are replete with references to Peter Higgs, the British physicist who predicted the existence of such a particle in the early 1960s. But, that a boson - one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particles - is named after Satyendra Nath Bose who preceded Higgs seems to have got buried deeper than the 27km tunnel under the Franco-Swiss border that hosts science's biggest hunt ever.

Bose, who worked with Albert Einstein to bring out the Bose-Einstein statistics and the theory of Bose-Einstein condensate in the 1920s, was a natural candidate for a Nobel Prize which he never got.

But his work on quantum mechanics was so substantial that they named one of the subatomic particles after him.

However, when science's biggest find came, Bose was missing from the limelight, even in India.

"I believe it is a deliberate omission," says P M Bhargava, founder director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. "This is not the only such case." Top Indian scientists like Bhargava feel that it reflects a general lack of recognition for Indian scientists.

C N R Rao, who heads the scientific advisory council to the PM, says Bose had been historically ignored, both in India and abroad. "Maybe because he was so outspoken. I remember a function addressed by Jawaharlal Nehru, where Bose disagreed with a point Nehru made," says Rao. Bose would have been more popular had he lived in the US, he says.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 19:48
by Bade
^^^ I am sorry but could not help but do this :rotfl: after reading the comments of some "senior" scientists on Bosons. So every time a quark was discovered was Fermi honored as a special mention as Fermions like Bosons are also named after him.

Seriously guys, we do not want to be ridiculed by the world on this. It is another matter that Bose may have missed the Nobel committee's attention and it is possible he could care less too from what I read of his personality. But he does deserve a Bharat Ratna, IMO but not for Higgs for god's sake.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 20:05
by Varoon Shekhar
Article from mouthshut.com, about 4 years ago:

India has contributed to the construction and commissioning of CERN’s most ambitious particle accelerator project the “Large Hadron Collider” (LHC) and is now engaged in other activities, namely, CTF 3 and LINAC-4. The contributions to LHC span from hardware, software, expert manpower support for evaluation of some of the LHC sub-systems and commissioning support of various subsystems of LHC. India has developed and supplied a total of 7080 Precision Magnet Positioning Systems (PMPS) Jacks for supporting Cryodipole magnets of LHC, 1146 Superconducting Corrector Magnets (MCS), 616 Superconducting octupole-decapole correcting magnets (MCDO), 5500 Quench Heater Power Supplies(QHPS), 1435 Local Protection Units (LPUs) etc., for LHC. With the background of these contributions to CERN’s satisfaction, India was invited to participate in CERN’s upcoming Advanced Accelerator Projects, like, Superconducting Proton LINAC, SPL and Compact Linear Collider Test Facility, CTF 3

Details of Indian Contributions
1 50000 litres Liquid Nitrogen tanks.
2 Superconducting corrector magnets
i) Sextpole (MCS)
ii) Decapole and Octupole (MCDO)
3 Precision Magnet Positioning System (PMPS) Jacks
4 Quench Heater Protection Systems (QHPS)
5 Integration of QHPS units into racks
6 Control electronics for circuit breakers of energy extraction system
7 Local protection units (LPU)
8 SC Dipole magnet tests/measurements,expert support in Man years
9 LHC Hardware Commissioning of Cryogenics, Power converters, Protection systems, Controls. Man years
10 Data management software upgrade, Data analysis software/documentation projects
11 Development of JMT-II software
12 Software development-slow control of Industrial Systems of LHC
13 Design and calculations for Vacuum system for beam dump line
14 Analysis of cryo-line jumper and magnet connections

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 00:09
by Vayutuvan
Bade wrote:So every time a quark was discovered was Fermi honored as a special mention as Fermions like Bosons are also named after him.
:lol: Pretty soon our journos start writing articles protesting Hadre is not getting any recognition even though the research was done at LHC. :wink:

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 04:32
by krisna
goddamn particle
The Higgs boson is often referred to as the "God particle" by individuals outside the scientific community,[70] after the title of Leon Lederman's popular science book on particle physics, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?[71][72] While use of this term may have contributed to increased media interest,[72] many scientists dislike it, since it overstates the particle's importance, not least since its discovery would still leave unanswered questions about the unification of quantum chromodynamics, the electroweak interaction, and gravity, as well as the ultimate origin of the universe.[70][4] Higgs, an atheist himself, is displeased that the Higgs particle is nicknamed the "God particle",[73] because the term "might offend people who are religious".[74]

Lederman said he gave it the nickname "the God particle" because the particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive,"[70][71][75] but jokingly added that a second reason was because "the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing."[71]

A renaming competition conducted by the science correspondent for the British Guardian newspaper chose the name "the champagne bottle boson" as the best from among their submissions: "The bottom of a champagne bottle is in the shape of the Higgs potential and is often used as an illustration in physics lectures. So it's not an embarrassingly grandiose name, it is memorable, and [it] has some physics connection too."[76]

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 00:13
by Prem
Now, Pakistan Claims its Contribution to Higgs Boson
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012 ... ggs-boson/
discovery of the long-elusive Higgs boson particle Wednesday might bring clarity on the existence of the objects in the universe. But the sub atomic particle itself must be wondering where it came from. Who discovered it?Peter Higgs, Satyendra Nath Bose or Abdus Salam? You might be aware of the first two, but the new entry in the list comes from none other than India’s neighbor Pakistan, which has claimed their scientist contributed to the landmark discovery.The article noted that Mr. Salam collaborated with another Indian physicist, Jogesh Pati, in 1974 to propose what is known as the ‘Pati-Salam’ model that further moved forward the “theoretical underpinnings of the Standard Model.”This might give the Indian government some more reasons to cheer. It has been complaining that the role of another Indian scientist, Mr. Bose, has not been given due credit. India had issued a lengthy statement saying that the God particle was “as much Boson as Higgs.”And much like the Indian government and the media, which had been annoyed over the lack of credit given to Mr. Bose in the Higgs boson drama, the Pakistani newspaper, too, shares a disappointment.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 00:26
by Bade
There is more credibility in this claim, as from all others not mentioned too of that era who worked on unification problems.
“A Pakistani was at the fore of this frontier of discovery in the 1960s and 1970s. But rather than encourage and celebrate his magnificent achievement, he was maligned and sidelined for his faith. An ironic fact: most physicists are staunch atheists but Salam was one of the few firm believers in God.”
But by whom, yes by Pakistan itself. How ironic to claim him now. :((

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 02:08
by SaiK
see.. associating with pakis, leads to what!

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 02:14
by Vipul
Scientists from India seldom get their due.

Who Bose?" asks a young colleague. Having studied science in higher secondary, she remembers the names of Heisenberg, Fermi, Maxwell and Planck. But Satyendra Nath Bose? A round of surfing and she comes to know what 'boson' in the Higgs Boson stands for. "A genius Bose was. But was he in our textbooks?" she wonders. Even the Wikipedia entry on 'God Particle' doesn't carry 'boson' with a capital B. 'The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs,' it reads. There's no reference to Bose in the article, though the Indian physicist was a mover and shaker in the world of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, having laid the foundation of quantum statistics and collaborated with Einstein as an equal partner in pathbreaking researches. But a solid place in science books? A Nobel Prize? A toast raised to him at CERN?

Jagadish Chandra Bose wouldn't have been surprised. He invented wireless telecommunications two years before Marconi even started dabbling in it, but the Italian is known as the inventor of radio and got a Nobel Prize in 1909, which could have been shared with Bose, at the least. The comment of Nevill Mott, a physicist, sounds almost like an excuse in this context: "J.C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time".So nobody understood his work! Right?

Then there was Ramanujan, a mathematical genius in the same league as Gauss and Euler, but who is far from being a deity in the global scientific pantheon. The reason? He was an Indian.

The most 'wronged against' appears to be Meghnad Saha - a pioneer in stellar astrophysics - who rubbed shoulders with Einstein, Haldane and Hubble. Saha's contribution in gas ionisation, Fermi said, inspired him no end. But global recognition? He was nominated for the Nobel four times but turned down each time because the prize committee felt "one winner (Raman) in a century from India was more than what physics could tolerate!"

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 02:43
by hnair
I am telling you, we need to create our own Nobel prizes and give it out to influential people without moral judgements. One year we give it to Obama for being the first African-American prime-minister (sic) of US and next year posthumously to Osama, for his work in simulating the world economy and restructuring of world security apparatus.

Same for sciences. So we should give one posthumously to Alfred Nobel for finding a better way to kill people and the next year to Ramar Pillai, for finding a better way to kill us all with laughter. We should have another category for things like monarchies and religious orders that still exhibit way too much love for the past.

A beautiful thing it will be to watch Jimmy Carter, AQKhan, Al Zawahiri's wives (he couldnt make it), Archibishop of Canterbury and Queen of Sweden smilingly posing for a photo outside Connaught Place (the award venue).

All are influential in their own way. no?

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 08:22
by Prem
Talking abour Ignoble Nobel Prize, lets not ignore so many Maha Mental Slave Indians saliving at it even if they have to sell their country and soul. The day an Indian Politican gets the nomination, let it understood that he or she has served the Non Indian Masters well and the country be ready for making hughe sacrifcies to survive and thrive.
IMHO,we have great Name Brand in MKG to start the similar international prize.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 05:28
by Virupaksha
Jhujar wrote:Talking abour Ignoble Nobel Prize, lets not ignore so many Maha Mental Slave Indians saliving at it even if they have to sell their country and soul. The day an Indian Politican gets the nomination, let it understood that he or she has served the Non Indian Masters well and the country be ready for making hughe sacrifcies to survive and thrive.
IMHO,we have great Name Brand in MKG to start the similar international prize.
We have it already

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_Peace_Prize

But for DIEs/MUTUs anything Indian is something to be looked down upon.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 00:57
by Prem
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/ ... latestnews
Enough about Higgs, let's discuss the boson, Indians say
July 10, 2012: A portrait of Indian scientist Satyendranath Bose, is displayed at the Bangiya Vigyan Parishad or the Bengal Science Society founded by Bose in Kolkata, India. (AP Photo/Bikas Das)
Despite the fact that Bose had little direct involvement in theorizing the Higgs boson itself, in India the lack of attention given to one of their own was seen as an insult too big to ignore."He is a forgotten hero," the government lamented in a lengthy statement, noting that Bose was never awarded a Nobel Prize though "at least 10 scientists have been awarded the Nobel" in the same field.The annoyance marks yet another case in the ever-growing list of perceived global snubs Indians feel they suffer, from the U.S. airport searches of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to the naming of a superbug after New Delhi, where it was found.
Indians are touchy about this. All post-colonial societies are touchy about this," said political psychologist Ashis Nandy of the Delhi-based think tank Center for the Study of Developing Societies. "The sooner we get out of that, the better."Nandy, who interviewed Bose before his death in 1974, said the scientist himself was "least concerned about rankings and prizes."
The boson is named in honor of the Kolkata-born scientist's work in the 1920s with Albert Einstein in defining one of two basic classes of subatomic particles. The work describes how photons can be considered particles as well as waves -- such as in a laser beam. All particles that follow such behavior, including the Higgs boson, are called bosons.
The Sunday Times of India noted other eminent Indian scientists who "never got their due," including physicist G.N. Ramachandran who died in 2001 after making biological discoveries like collagen's triple-helix structure and 3-D imaging used in studying the human body.It also said living Indian scientists, Varanasi-based molecular biologist Lalji Singh and New York-based E. Premkumar Reddy, should be candidates for awards. Both men reportedly said they were not interested in lobbying for prizes."Many people in this country have been perplexed, and even annoyed, that the Indian half of the now-acknowledged `God particle' is being carried in lower case," The Economic Times wrote in an editorial Monday. What most don't realize is that the naming of all bosons after Bose "actually denotes greater importance."

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 20:26
by Vipul
http://hillpost.in/2012/07/04/god-parti ... /hp_bureau

More than 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries, including a 150 from India, collaborated to erect the superstructure. Besides, Swapan Sen and Sandeep Sarkar of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, developed a prototype of chip named MANAS (Multiplex Analogue Signal Processor), in 1997, which took them 11 years. Some 80,000 MANAS chips were supplied to the LHC.

MANAS’s high speed and vast recording capacity, could help speed up personal computers by 10,000 times and boosting internet speed phenomenally.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 20:49
by Bade
It is time for all those empty jounos claiming Bose now to go to TIFR, SINP, DU, PU and interview scientists who worked on LHC projects and write something meaningful than keep crying at western science and its lack of recognition of Indian work, when we ourselves do not want to highlight the unknown to the public, Indian scientists from today. The tax payers owe that much.

Bah humbugs !

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 24 Jul 2012 09:53
by Bade
Posting here too for a wider audience, how while we cry about Higgs bosons :-) being a western conspiracy, none would have heard about a Prof. Raychaudhuri who made quite a seminal work a long time ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gReG3S ... re=related

http://cs-test.ias.ac.in/cs/Downloads/article_39110.pdf

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 24 Jul 2012 16:23
by vishvak
Some info on MANAS chips from Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics:

from saha.ac.in:

Pics and charts: link

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 01:16
by Bade
Another Nobel like prize and it includes an Indian, Asoke Sen from Allahabad.

9 Scientists Receive a New Physics Prize
The $3 million has already appeared in Dr. Guth’s bank account, one that had had a balance of $200. “Suddenly, it said, $3,000,200,” he said. “The bank charged a $12 wire transfer fee, but that was easily affordable.”

Mr. Milner said that he wanted to recognize advances in delving into the deepest mysteries of physics and the universe. “This intellectual quest to understand the universe really defines us as human beings,” he said.

Four of the physicists work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.: Nima Arkani-Hamed, Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg and Edward Witten. They work on theories trying to tie together the basic particles and forces of the universe, particularly with a mathematical machinery known as string theory.

The other winners are Andrei Linde, a physicist at Stanford who also worked on cosmic inflation; Alexei Kitaev, a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology who works on quantum computers; Maxim Kontsevich, a mathematician at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies outside Paris whose abstract mathematical findings proved useful to physicists unraveling string theory; and Ashoke Sen, a string theorist at Harish-Chandra Research Institute in India.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 01:26
by Rahul M
Bade wrote:Posting here too for a wider audience, how while we cry about Higgs bosons :-) being a western conspiracy, none would have heard about a Prof. Raychaudhuri who made quite a seminal work a long time ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gReG3S ... re=related

http://cs-test.ias.ac.in/cs/Downloads/article_39110.pdf
he he, I am pretty sure I have posted those links a few years back. :mrgreen:

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 01:36
by Bade
^^ I did suspect that someone had posted it, but in light of all the CT cries, when I saw the link elsewhere thought of posting it again.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 03:46
by putnanja
Bade wrote:Another Nobel like prize and it includes an Indian, Asoke Sen from Allahabad.

9 Scientists Receive a New Physics Prize
...

The other winners are Andrei Linde, a physicist at Stanford who also worked on cosmic inflation; Alexei Kitaev, a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology who works on quantum computers; Maxim Kontsevich, a mathematician at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies outside Paris whose abstract mathematical findings proved useful to physicists unraveling string theory; and Ashoke Sen, a string theorist at Harish-Chandra Research Institute in India.

Allahabad physicist wins academics’ biggest prize
...
Prof. Sen, who has just turned 56, confirmed that his $ 3 million prize had been credited to his account, but said it was still too early for him to decide what to do with it. The physicist whose work is seen by most as revolutionary but questioned by some, said he did not consider the award as an endorsement of his findings.
...
Prof. Sen is a rare scientist who chose to return to India after post doctoral work at prestigious institutes abroad. He said he did not miss the rarefied peer group that often makes the pursuit of academics abroad enriching.

“When I came back in 1995, I did feel a little isolated initially but that is no longer the case now. The Internet has made all possible information accessible, and in terms of a peer group I have quite a good academic circle among colleagues at the Harish Chandra Research Institute,” he said.

“As far as research funding is considered, fortunately theoretical physics hardly requires any, so I never felt any such need. The overall government and institutional support has been good enough for my work.”
...

Sen studied at Kolkata’s Presidency College and did his Master’s at IIT Kanpur before proceeding to the State University of New York, Stonybrook. In 1982, he went to do post doctoral work at Fermilab, Batavia, and at SLAC, Stanford. In 1988, he chose to return to India, where he joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He moved to Allahabad in 1995, and has been with Harish Chandra Research Institute ever since.

Prof. Sen received the Padma Shree in 2001 and the S S Bhatnagar Award in 1994. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1998, and to the Indian National Science Academy in 1995.
...

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 01 Aug 2012 11:25
by Singha
our media keeps us in the dark about such places as the one Dr Sen works in, IISERs, etc etc. I have no idea what a bhatnagar fellow is , though I hear STEM hawks here talk about it...

coverage begins and ends with iit, iim and sometimes iisc...generally about pay packages offered by consulting and finance cos :((

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 05 Aug 2012 07:01
by negi
^ Bhatnagar prize is India's equivalent of Nobel in Science.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 12 Aug 2012 22:14
by nakul
India's Inventions through the ages. It is a 13 part documentary broadcast on Doordarshan.

http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/ ... cumentary/

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 17 Aug 2012 23:52
by Hiten
Indian scientists discover drug for osteoporosis
http://t.co/72OKzeZV

American Scientist wrote about his visit to IIT-Delhi & other Astronomy institutes in the country in 1980

http://www.scribd.com/doc/102670191/Ele ... -Astronomy

via http://www.aame.in/2012/08/american-eng ... isits.html

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 09 Nov 2012 01:53
by krisna
Mathematical proof reveals magic of Ramanujan's genius
PROOFS are the currency of mathematics, but Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the all-time great mathematicians, often managed to skip them. Now a proof has been found for a connection that he seemed to mysteriously intuit between two types of mathematical function.

The proof deepens the intrigue surrounding the workings of Ramanujan's enigmatic mind. It may also help physicists learn more about black holes - even though these objects were virtually unknown during the Indian mathematician's lifetime.
He settled on a discussion in the last known letter penned by Ramanujan, to Hardy, concerning a type of function now known as a modular form.

Functions are equations that can be drawn as graphs on an axis, like a sine wave, and produce an output when computed for any chosen input or value. In the letter, Ramanujan wrote down a handful of what were then totally novel functions. They looked unlike any known modular forms, but he stated that their outputs would be very similar to those of modular forms when computed for the roots of 1, such as the square root -1. Characteristically, Ramanujan offered neither proof nor explanation for this conclusion.
t was only 10 years ago that mathematicians formally defined this other set of functions, now called mock modular forms. But still no one fathomed what Ramanujan meant by saying the two types of function produced similar outputs for roots of 1.

Now Ono and colleagues have exactly computed one of Ramanujan's mock modular forms for values very close to -1. They discovered that the outputs rapidly balloon to vast, 100-digit negative numbers, while the corresponding modular form balloons in the positive direction.

Ono's team found that if you add the corresponding outputs together, the total approaches 4, a relatively small number. In other words, the difference in the value of the two functions, ignoring their signs, is tiny when computed for -1, just as Ramanujan said.

The result confirms Ramanujan's incredible intuition, says Ono. While Ramanujan was able to calculate the value of modular forms, there is no way he could have done the same for mock modular forms, as Ono now has. "I calculated these using a theorem I proved in 2006," says Ono, who presented his insight at the Ramanujan 125 conference in Gainesville, Florida, this week. "It is inconceivable he had this intuition, but he must have."

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 20:12
by Amber G.
^^^ The above article, IMO is poorly written and really does not tell much about real stuff...
One nice article article for some somewhat more useful reading ...(Ken Ono is one of the author!)
http://www.aimath.org/~kaur/PPP22.pdf

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 02 Dec 2012 03:35
by abhishek_sharma

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 04 Dec 2012 09:18
by Amber G.
^^^ Part II of the article above is going to be published in the January 2013 issue. (It will be posted online in a few days)..

BTW the notices (http://www.ams.org/notices) is available to everyone online (without subscription)

I did like The men who knew infinity

Also nice to see (if you have not seen it yet) the 1987 documentary "Letters from an Indian Clerk which can be watched on youtube:


Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 19 Jan 2013 21:04
by Vipul
‘Madurai observatory may surpass Cern’

India is all set to build the prestigious Neutrino Observatory (INO) in Tamil Nadu which, in terms of the size of the equipment, will outshadow the facility at Cern, Geneva, that shot into prominence last year with the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle.
“It will have the largest massive magnet (ever built) and its initial goal will be to study neutrons that go beyond the Standard Model,” said Dr Rajasekaran of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai.

This underground laboratory, will consist of a large cavern to be accessed by a 2,100-metre-long and 7.5-metre-wide tunnel. Its functiioning will be overseen by the National Centre for High Energy Physics near Madurai.But it is facing a major impediment, said Dr Rajasekaran, “INO requires accelerator engineers and laser and plasma physicists. But this manpower is simply not available within the country. We will need 30,000 sensitive detectors and three million electronic channels to operationalise this project. Who will train these people to use this equipment?” he wondered.

Dr Rajashekaran suggested the solution was to do what Dr Homi Bhabha had done in the sixties: persuade Indian scientists working abroad to return, thereby creating an “inverse brain drain”.
Taking a dig at Dr Rolf Dieter Heuer, director general of Cern, who was present on the dias, Dr Rajashekaran obvserved, “The biggest loophole in the LHC collider’s discovery of the Boson Higgs particle is that it leaves out (the impact of) gravity as also the String Theory to which India has made substantial contributions.”

Dr Heuer admitted that the Higgs Boson discovery had left a number of unanswered questions. “We have achieved a breakthrough, but our real work has only just begun. We need to measure its interaction with other particles and also determine its properties.” Listing out some of the significant questions that scientists in Cern were working on, Dr Heuer said, “We want to find out what was the primordial state of matter after the Big Bang. Is it a scalar particle and once we find the Higgs particle how will our understanding of the universe change.”

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 20 Jan 2013 19:26
by Bade
^^^ Vipul, the article has so much wrong written in it, that it makes a mockery of Indian science. Better to not quote it at all. Even a cursory cross check with info on Wiki about the INO project will tell any journo the mistakes. It is a pity that they are comparing INO with CERN as a whole, in a bigger than yours comparison which is laughable. Bringing in string theory makes it even more comical at this stage, then there is the reference to 'neutron'.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 22:01
by Vipul
Yes, reading the surpassing CERN part i was about to put (DDM) as part of the quoted line.
Is the magnet part true?

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 22 Jan 2013 00:58
by Bade
Vipul, yes to that. More on the INO project.

http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access ... nfId=87234

what DDM meant perhaps is detector size by weight, INO is a 50k ton beast whereas CMS experiment at CERN is 12,500 tons.

If you look at the field strength, CMS uses 4Tesla field and INO magnet has 1.5 Tesla field. (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/cms-en.html)

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 12:42
by member_23686
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/ ... atch-fire/

Why India’s Waste-to-Energy Industry Won’t Catch Fire
By DAVID FERRIS
Green: Business

K.S. Sivaprasad, an engineer from India, spent four decades perfecting a factory that accepts city trash, dries it, picks out the burnable elements and ignites them to create electricity. His first full-scale plant chews through 700 tons of garbage a day and delivers 5.5 megawatts to the power grid.
Garbage on the tracks in Mumbai. Bureaucracy is just one reason that waste-to-energy plants do not yet exist in India. Garbage on the tracks in Mumbai. Bureaucracy is just one reason that waste-to-energy plants do not yet exist in India.

The unfortunate part is that the plant is in Malaysia, not India, where the process was invented. Mr. Sivaprasad, an energetic 80-year-old, went abroad after repeatedly trying to build his project in India but finding that the system was stacked against him, he says.

India tosses more than 188 million tons of garbage each day, but is falling behind other Asian nations in early efforts to turn it into electricity. The Chinese government claims to be on track to produce three gigawatts of power from city waste-to-energy factories by 2015, and Malaysia plans to build a second, larger plant based on Mr. Sivaprasad’s design.

Meanwhile, India has captured methane from several large landfills and has built six facilities that pull out and ignite flammable trash, turning it into what is known as refuse-derived fuel. But these six fuel factories, which rely on new refuse, have either shut down or barely run, victims of equipment failure or bureaucratic snarls that paradoxically leave them short of garbage.

Why? “It is the million-dollar question,” Mr. Sivaprasad said. “I don’t know what to say. India has a lot of hurdles, you know, very bureaucratic. Very difficult. In short, if you put it in a nutshell, technology developed in India has come up in another country.”

India’s output of trash grew nearly 50 percent in the decade ending in 2011, driven by swelling urban populations that have adopted parts of the throwaway Western lifestyle. Those same demographics account for a surge in power usage that has left the country chronically short of electricity and major cities prey to rolling blackouts.

One problem is the nature of trash in the poorer nations of Asia: it is soggier than that of Europe, the United States or Japan and doesn’t easily catch fire. In India, the urban waste mix is nearly 47 percent water, according to a study by the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University. Urbanites in poorer Asian countries cook more of their own food, while more affluent Westerners use more disposable (and flammable) plastic and paper. As a result, urban waste in the developed world is embedded with 10 megajoules of power per ton, while that of countries like India contains just 7.3 megajoules.

The waste-to-energy effort lies at the intersection of two heavy industries, energy production and waste disposal, both of which are hampered by a thick layer of bureaucracy, turf battles among local, state and federal governments and demands for bribes by middlemen. These, along with hefty maintenance costs, make it difficult for a waste-to-energy project to open and stay profitable, according to Amiya Kumar Sahu, president of the National Solid Waste Association of India.

“So far, there is not a single plant in India which is a success story about waste to energy. Not a single one,” Dr. Sahu added.

Another issue is incentives. China and Malaysia finance their waste-to-energy projects with a combination of feed-in-tariffs and tipping fees, giving trash entrepreneurs a reward for consuming trash and for producing power. This approach also gives companies like Mr. Sivaprasad’s time to refine what can be a temperamental technology. The haphazard nature of junk means that an errant piece — say, a shattered bottle — can invade the gears and cause expensive delays.

Mr. Sivaprasad licensed his technique to Malaysia to build the Kajang waste-to-energy plant, which is outside Kuala Lumpur. It is administered solely by the central government and relies for income on a subsidy of 14 cents per kilowatt-hour produced and $13 per ton in tipping fees charged to the municipality of Kajang, whose trash feeds the plant.

In India, by comparison, tipping fees are illegal and subsidies are only for construction. Beyond inviting corruption, this structure gives plant operators no motive to produce power once the plant is built.

Mr. Sivaprasad got interested in turning trash into energy when he visited the United States during the energy crisis in the early 1970’s. By the 1980’s he had built a prototype in Bangalore and received a patent, but it wasn’t until the mid-1990’s that Malaysia approached him about using his design.

The Malaysian factory was completed in 2009 at a cost of $45 million and is about to undergo an expansion that will increase its output to 10 megawatts. A second plant of the same size may break ground soon.

Mr. Sivaprasad’s company, Core Competencies, has brought in Surendra Saxena, an expert in carbon sequestration from Florida International University, to control another waste stream: the carbon dioxide from its smokestacks. Mr. Saxena’s involvement will help the company apply for a grant from the Trade and Development Agency in the United States for the next project that Mr. Sivaprasad would like to build: a plant that would absorb 1,200 tons of trash a day and produce 10 megawatts of power in the southern Indian cities of Chennai or Bangalore.

“Some improvement is coming in, and with American money I can clinch a project,” he said. “This has taken a very long time.”

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 18:06
by member_23686
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhash_ ... ysician%29

Subhash Mukhopadhyay (physician)

Subhash Mukhopadhyay (Bengali: সুভাষ মুখোপাধ্যায় Shubhash Mukhopaddhae) (January 16, 1931 - June 19, 1981) was a physician from Kolkata, India, who created the world's second and India's first child using in-vitro fertilisation, Durga who was born 67 days after the first IVF baby in United Kingdom. Unfortunately, he was harassed by the West Bengal government, and not allowed to share his achievements with the international scientific community. Dejected, he committed suicide on June 19, 1981.[1]

His life and death has been the subject of countless newspaper reviews and inspired the Hindi movie Ek Doctor Ki Maut (Death of a doctor), directed by Tapan Sinha.[2]
Early life

He was born on January 16, 1931 in Hazaribagh, Bihar (now in Jharkhand), India. He studied and graduated (in 1955) with an honours degree in physiology from the Calcutta National Medical College, which was then affiliated with the prestigious University of Calcutta.[3] He later earned a doctorate from the University of Calcutta in 1958 reproductive physiology under the stewardship of Prof. Sachchidananda Banerjee. Later he earned a second doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in 1967 in reproductive endocrinology,
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Career

He created history when he became the first physician in India (and second in the world after British physicians Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards) to perform the In vitro fertilization resulting in a test tube baby "Durga" (alias Kanupriya Agarwal) on October 3, 1978.[4][5]

Facing social ostracization, bureaucratic negligence, reprimand and insult instead of recognition from the West Bengal government,[6] and refusal of the Government of India to allow him to attend international conferences,[6] he committed suicide in his Calcutta residence on 19 June 1981.[2][6]

His feat has been given belated recognition as the Indian physician who in 1986 was officially regarded as being the first doctor to perform in-vitro fertilization in India.

His recognition is attributable to TC Anand Kumar who is credited to be the mastermind behind India's second (officially the first) test-tube baby. Kumar took the crown off his own head after reviewing Subhash Mukhopadhyay's personal notes. He was ably helped by Sunit Mukherji, who was a one-time colleague of Mukhopadhyay. Kumar is currently active in setting up a research institute in reproductive biology in memory of Mukhopadhyay.

A film Ek doctor ki maut directed by Tapan Sinha was made on his life.[2]
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Experiment
Collection and evaluation of spermatozoa

Durga’s father was found to have a low sperm count, according to Mukherjee who obviously was aware of the diagnostics value of semenograms as evidence by the papers he represented much before the WHO laboratory manual for the examination of human semen came out in 1980.

Ovarian stimulation. In his report dated 19-10-1978 to the DHS, Mukherjee stated that he had treated Mrs Agarwal with hMG ampoules given twice a day and on alternate days and starting from day 3 to day 9 of the cycle. She was given 6000 I.U. of hCG on day 11 of the cycle and she was subjected to oocyte aspiration some 48h later. Mukherjee was able to aspirate 5 folicle by this method. In today's context this ovarian protocol will not sound outrageous because controlled ovarian hyperstimulation is the standard procedure for all women subjected to IVF. However, until 1980 December ‘conventional wisdom’ in Britain, Australia and USA dictated that stimulated cycles were unsuitable for oocyte collection and therefore oocyte aspiration was restricted to natural cycles. It was only in 1981 that other scientists resorted to ovarian stimulation. The Australians who were the next to announce the birth of IVF babies, began to use clomiphene citrate for ovarian stimulation in 1981. The Norfolk group in the USA, who were the third to report the occurrence of an IVF baby, began to use hMC and hCG in their IVF programme with success in 1982. It is noteworthy that Mukherjee was far ahead of his time in successfully using an ovarian stimulation protocol before anyone else in the world had thought of doing so.

Ovum pick-up for IVF was a problem during the early days. The British team had used a laparascope to harvest oocytes. The advent of ultrasonography later on opened out a new avenue to aspirate oocytes transvesically under ultrasound guidance by making a percutaneous insertion of a long needle traversing the abdominal wall, the urinary bladder and finally the ovarian follicle. The advent of the transvaginal probe has made it possible to collect oocytes per vaginam and this is the standard procedure used now.

Mukherjee ’s originality was that he was able to access the ovaries by a very simple operation on the wall of the vagina. Stimulated ovaries enlarge and drop down towards the Pouch of Douglas. A small incision on the posterior wall of the vagina would allow the ovaries to fall into this opening. This reminds one of how a biologist gains rapid access to the ovaries of rats by a very simple lateral, abdominal incision. The entire procedure was accomplished within a couple of minutes. Mukherjee ’s research experience with rats and humans had helped him take this very simple and original approach of gaining access to ovaries by posterior colpotomy. One wonders why this very simple approach did not gain popularity. After all today oocytes are aspirated per vaginam under ultrasound guidance.
In vitro culture techniques

The freshly aspirated oocytes were incubated for 4 hours before inseminating them with the husband’s semen that was processed in protein-supplemented Tyrode's solution. This is exactly what is done even to this day in almost all IVF programmes to accomplish in vitro oocyte maturation; processing semen is essential for ‘sperm activation’. The oocytes were exposed to processed semen for a period of 24 hours and later incubated for another 72 hours in a mixture of cervical-uterine fluids. The use of such fluid is not described elsewhere. However, the use of a synthetic fluid, similar to that found in the human Fallopian tube, has been described to be useful for in vitro embryo culture procedures.

The methods of in vitro fertilization and embryo growth are described in detail in Mukherjee ’s letter to the DHS dated 19 October 1978 as well as in a publication in an obscure journal. Mukherjee ’s stated ‘…It also appears that for cryogenic preservation of embryos with a relatively larger number of blastomeres (more than 8 cells) may be preferable’.

‘Few pre-ovulatory human oocytes collected from a married woman by surgery were fertilized with spermatozoa from the husband and cleaved in vitro and subsequently frozen slowly to about 196oC after stepwise treatment with dimethyl sulfoxide. One such frozen embryo was subsequently thawed slowly and when transferred into the uterus of the woman apparently resulted in the production of a clinically normal female baby after normal period of gestation’.

Here is clear published evidence of how exactly Mukherjee carried out his version of in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer.

Cryopreservation of embryos from mice, rabbits, sheep and goats were reported between 1971 and 1979. The first report on the successful cryopreservation of four to eight cell human embryos appeared as late as 1981 and Trounson and Mohr reported the first successful clinical outcome of the transfer of thawed human embryos in 1983. A WHO report states ‘embryo cryopreservation has now become a routine adjunct to IVF procedures, and various methods of freezing are employed. The method that has yielded the best results in terms of simplicity, efficiency and reproducibility is one that involves freezing of one to three-day-old embryos (one to eight cells) in a controlled biological chamber that cools the embryos to sub-zero temperatures in the presence of a cryoprotectant 1,2 propanediol. Other cryoprotectants that are used are dimethyl sulfoxide (the same cryoprotectant was used by Mukherjee ) and glycerol.

It may be noted that Subhas Mukherjee reported the successful cryopreservation of an eight cell embryo, storing it for 53 days, thawing and replacing it into the mother’s womb, resulting in a successful and live birth as early as 1978- a full five years before anyone else had done so. This small publication of Mukherjee in 1978 clearly shows that Mukherjee was on the right line of thinking much before anyone else had demonstrated the successful outcome of a pregnancy following the transfer of a 8-cell frozen-thawed embryo into human subjects transferring 8-cell cryopreserved embryos.” (Current Science, Vol .72. No. 7, 10 April 1997)
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End of experiment

18 November 1978. An ‘expert committee’ was appointed by the Government of West Bengal under the medical association to decide over the fate of a convict named Dr. Subhas Mukhopahyay. His charges are, one, he claims to be the architect of first human test tube baby named Durga (3 October 1978). Secondly, he announced the report to the media before being cleared by the Government bureaucrats. Thirdly, he made this impossible possible with few general apparatus and a refrigerator in his small southern avenue flat while others cannot even think of it, although, having all the expensive resources in their hand (in this research Mukhopadhyay was assisted by Sunit Mukherji and S.K. Bhattacharya). Fourth and most important allegation, he never let his head down by the Government Bureaucrats and his straightforwardness always attracted jealousy out of his peers. The committee was presided over by a Radio physicist and it was composed of a gynecologist, a psychologist, a physicist and a neurologist. None of them had any knowledge about modern reproductive technology. “Where did you keep these embryos?”[citation needed] Mukhopahdhyay said “in sealed ampules.” Then he asked again “How did you seal an ampule?” Speechless Mukhopadhyay could only utter “pardon?” From here started a questioning and counter questioning session which need not to be mentioned was utterly meaningless.[citation needed] “Oh! Embryos do not die while sealing?” there were people who never saw embryos in the entire span of their lifetime.

The Committee put forward its final verdict, “Everything that Dr. Mukhopadhyay claims is bogus.”

Only 67 days earlier, on 25 July 1978, world’s first human test tube baby Louise Joy Brown was born at Oldham General Hospital in England. Architects were Robert Edward and Patrick Steptoe. In their procedure they collected an ovum by using a laparoscope. At first they observed the evolution and development of the ovum for a long time and then collected it through a small incision. The ovum thus collected is then fertilized by sperm on a small disc. When it forms into an embryo scientists placed it into the womb. But Mukhopadhyay without using a laparoscope collected the ovum by performing a small operation in the vagina. He increased the number of ova collected by using hormones and developed an embryo. Lastly, he placed it in the womb. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2010 for his efforts.[7]

Thanks to his peers and Government bureaucrats he was ultimately handed a punishment and transferred to an ophthalmic department which sealed his prospect of working on hormones.
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Late recognition

An insulting silence carried on with every passing day. According to scientific records, Harsha (born 16 August 1986) become the first human test tube baby of India. The credit for this achievement went to T.C Anand Kumar, Director of IRR (ICMR).[8] In 1997, he went to Kolkata to participate in a Science Congress. It was there that all the research documents of Mukhopadhyay were handed over to him. After meticulously scrutinising and having discussions with Durga’s parents, he became certain that Mukhopadhyay was the architect of first human test tube baby in India.[8] This eminent scientist once mentioned in a journal[8] on ‘A critique of Mukherjee ’s technique’The brief description given by Mukherjee in his letter dated 19 October 1978 to the Director of Health Services, Government of West Bengal, the reports he gave over the television interviews and reported in the lay press describe how Mukherjee carried out the procedure of in vitro fertilization.[8]

On T.C. Anand Kumar’s initiative, Mukhopahdhyay was mentioned as the architect of first Indian test tube baby in a document related to the subject of artificial intercourse in ICMR.[citation needed] India’s first test tube baby “Durga”, whose parental name is Kanupriya Agarwal, works in a Multinational Company as a Marketing Executive in Delhi.[8][9] On her 25th birthday she first exposed her identity in a ceremony organized in the memory of Mukhopahdhyay.[9] She spoke about her creator in front of the media and proved once again that her creator’s claim was not bogus.[9]

In the ‘Dictionary of Medical Biography,’ published by World Foundation, enlists names of 1100 Medical Scientists from 100 countries around the world for their path breaking contributions to the medical science.[citation needed] Only three names found their place in that dictionary from the city of Kolkata. The names are: Sir Ronald Ross, U.N. Bramhachari and Dr. Mukhopadhyay.[citation needed] What is more ridiculous is that after his death, in 1981, one by one three scientists Howard Jones, Gleicher and Trounson (Australia) in three separate research claimed the invention of Human test tube baby. All these three research were already successfully accomplished by Mukhopadhyay long before their time. One of these scientists even found his research published in the famous Journal Nature

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 18:09
by member_23686
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... thy-plaque

Beautiful Mind
Prithvijit Mitra & Arnab Ganguly, TNN Jun 13, 2009, 03.56am IST

His was the tragic tale that inspired Tapan Sinha's Ek Doctor Ki Maut'. It's a gut-wrenching story of a genius being humiliated by jealous colleagues, harassed by an insensitive government and driven to suicide. Six days before the death anniversary of Dr Subhas Mukherjee creator of India's first test-tube baby TOI revisits his legacy and finds that the government's apathy is still the same

June 19, 1981. Namita Mukherjee, a teacher, returns from school to the fifth-floor flat on Southern Avenue where she lives with her husband, doctor and scientist Subhas Mukherjee. He has been depressed for some time, backstabbed by colleagues, jeered in his fraternity and ridiculed by the government. All because he believed he could create life outside the womb. The moment Namita steps in, she sees her husband's body hanging. The suicide note says: "I can't wait everyday for a heart attack to kill me."

The creator of India's first test tube baby one of the most brilliant minds the country has ever seen was dead. He was 50 and the inventor of a modern miracle, one that would change the lives of millions of childless couples in the years to come.

But the apathy that Subhas Mukherjee suffered in his lifetime continues 28 years after his death. Namita, who devotedly stood by her husband through every humiliation and harassment, is now frail, partly paralyzed and bed-ridden. Clinging on to the memory of her husband.

Her last wish of seeing an institute named after her husband a promise made by the state government four years ago is yet to be fulfilled. If she could get up and walk to the site where the research institute is supposed to come up, it would break her heart.

A dust-covered plaque at the academic building of Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital is the only sign that the project is listed on some government file. On May 31, 2005, the health department issued an order to set up an institute for research on reproduction and stem cell. A year later, health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra laid the foundation stone in the memory of Mukherjee who had spent his most productive years at NRS.

Like the plaque, the file is gathering dust in a room at Swasthya Bhawan. "It is in the pipeline and we are working on it," said S N Banerjee, director of medical education. A small group of the legendary scientist's associates is working hard to keep his memory alive. But even their efforts are being stonewalled by the same apathy that put an abrupt end to Mukherjee's life.

The health department has done little to honour Mukherjee's legacy. At work is the same bureaucratic wrangle that denied the scientist his rightful place in medical science history and drove him to suicide. Mukherjee remains a neglected icon in Bengal. Today, when invitro fertilization clinics have mushroomed all over the country, when gynaecologists cannot stop citing their achievements using IVF technique, no one spares a thought for the man who created it Dr Subhas Mukherjee.

Behind the suicide is a most shameful tale of government indifference, of professional jealousy and a community's refusal to admit the superiority of one of its own ilk.

The establishment administrative and medical has done its best to keep Mukherjee in oblivion. But they haven't really succeeded. His life and death have been laid threadbare in public. It has inspired popular fiction (Ramapada Chowdhury's novel Abhimanyu) and cinema (Tapan Sinha's national award winning Ek Doctor Ki Maut).

However, nothing has changed for the man who is arguably Bengal's foremost scientist in the post-Independence era and, many feel, worthy of winning a Nobel Prize. His own state and people may have shunned him, but the world continues to discover him anew.

Mukherjee is only the third scientist from Kolkata to be included in the Dictionary of Medical Biography, published from the UK in 2007. The others are Ronald Ross and U N Brahmachary.

Mukherjee with a double PhD in reproductive physiology and reproductive endocrinology started work on the IVF technique in the mid-60s. Such was his passion that he convinced his wife never to have a child as it could hamper his work. He even built an animal house for carrying out experiments.

"He never wanted to leave Kolkata since nowhere else would he have got so many patients. During the height of his crisis, some of his doctor friends suggested that he move out but he refused. He was a genius. Nothing could keep him down," said Sunit Mukherjee, his only surviving associate. Mukherjee experimented with the use of frozen and thawed embryos which had never been tried before and also worked on ways to control the menstrual cycle. Only a few people very close to him understood his experiments. Many felt he was mad.

"He read a paper in the Indian Science Congress in 1976 where he talked about controlling menstruation for more than a year. Today, the Americans have produced a pill which can stop menstruation for three months," Sunit Mukherjee said.

The test tube baby experiment that Mukherjee was carrying out succeeded on Oct 3, 1978. Durga, or Kanupriya, was born to a childless couple staying at Lord Sinha Road. The news caused an immediate sensation. But Kolkata's medical fraternity reacted with suspicion hostility even.

"When the news leaked that a test tube baby had been born, people questioned Subhas how he could achieve what the US hadn't? Initially he didn't want anybody to know what he was working on. It was an experiment and he didn't know what the outcome would be," Mukherjee said.

Neither the government nor doctors believed Mukherjee. He was ridiculed and abused in public meetings. A government committee headed by a radiophysicist, of all people was formed to judge the fertility expert's claims. The committee ruled against him despite the documents and affidavits submitted by Mukherjee and his associates.

The humiliation didn't end here. Calls came from all over the country and the world inviting Mukherjee to deliver lectures on the test tube baby. But the government stonewalled all of these, allowing him to go only till Delhi.

Mukherjee couldn't recover from this shock. The then health minister Nani Bhattacharya later explained that the decision was taken in "public interest". Mukherjee was transferred to Bankura Medical College. In 1980, he suffered a heart attack, after which he was transferred to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The flashpoint in this harassment came in the second week of June, 1981, when he was transferred again to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology as professor of electro-physiology. His research and experiments stopped. His patience snapped. A shattered Mukherjee killed himself.

Recognition came posthumous. T C Anand Kumar who had extensively gone through Mukherjee's paper and was later officially named the first creator of the test tube baby in India admitted that the honour should have gone to the Kolkata-based scientist. The public admission from Kumar came in 1997, 16 years after Mukherjee ended his life.

"He was the first to have invented the method. When I went through his research papers I realized we were all following him," said Kumar. He wrote to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee requesting him "to consider reversing the wrong meted out to him (Subhas Mukherjee) by the earlier government department".

The institute planned at NRS was supposed to right the wrongs. It's yet to see the light of the day.

The blueprint of the institute was prepared by Anand Kumar. The delay has angered him so much that he doesn't want to be involved with the project any more. "I don't know why the West Bengal government is dragging its feet. They don't seem to be interested," Kumar told TOI from Bangalore.

The Dr Subhas Mukherjee Memorial Reproductive Biology Research Centre set up in his memory hasn't been able to carry on with his work. An annual lecture held in Mukherjee's memory was last held in 2006. "The gynaecologists didn't show interest. Unless the younger generation comes forward it will be difficult to continue with the researches that he was working on," said Sunit Mukherjee.

Namita Mukherjee, bed-ridden for five years, prays that she would see the institute before breathing her last. "That is the only reason why I'm alive. I still hope that I will be able to see the institute before I die," said the 70-year-old. Papers, documents, journals that Mukherjee used are lying around the Southern Avenue flat. She doesn't have the means to preserve them.

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Posted: 19 Feb 2013 21:27
by ramana
X-Posting:
Anujan wrote:Will dig up references. In my undergrad talib days, yours truly (and a few others along with brofessor in our madrassa) gathered up all these techniques into a coherent summer course and made a CD on it. Includes math, tarka shashtra (art and science of debate), astronomy, chandas and grammar.

Our cheesy effort using Microsoft frontpage is here: http://cs.annauniv.edu/insight/Reading% ... condpg.htm

(Please forgive the excellent website design with blinking cheesy background, it was done 15 years ago, when internet was still a novelty)

Can go in many threads.....