Monthly Archives: July 2012

Monsoon meltoff

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Much has been written about the disastrous monsoon over the Indian subcontinent this season. We have heard the blame being apportioned to either El nino or climate change or even massive deforestation for the no-show of the rains this time. Even a small drizzle in peak monsoon time left people gushing.

However, urban India did not mind the monsoon debacle too much. It was hot but that was not an issue as long as the generators were running and the power back up was constantly feeding the city highrises. The cities were sleeping soundly amidst the comfortable whirring of their mega generators and ‘inverters’. The only concern seemed to be that potatoes and onions could get dearer soon.

However, this week changed all of that.  The week started with massive power outages across India. Reason — three major power grids of the country — the northern, north-eastern and eastern — collapsed leaving almost half of India without power for long, uncomfortable hours. Close to 700 million people were directly affected by the long hours of power cut. The power crash brought trains to a stop, closed markets down, forced closure of many educational institutes and offices and left citizens across urban India, not exposed such a crisis in recent times, high and dry.

And why did the crisis befall us? States withdrew more power than they were entitled to. Close to 80% of the power generated in India is thermal. And with air conditioners working overtime and farmers drawing more groundwater to meet the near-drought situation, there’s been a higher deman-supply gap than ever, according to New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). CSE says with low monsoon, India generated 6% lesser hydropower in June 2012 than in June 2011. That triggered the situation. There have been demands for switching over to renewable sources of energy, including solar and wind, but barring a few initiatives here and there, the country has not really gone big on them.

The failure of a monsoon has more than it meets the eye. At least the urban eye. It was only when power went off for long hours that Facebook statuses cribbed of ‘life without power’ and ‘half of India’ was trending on Twitter.

Rockstar scientists

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What do you call a week when you get to meet and hear from the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA James Watson, creator of artificial life Craig Venter, the man of the moment Director General of CERN  Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the man who piloted four NASA spaceships and put the Hubble telescope in space Charles F. Bolden Jr. and a few more rockstar scientists?

Phenomenal!

Venter, Watson, Heuer (top right) and Bolden Jr. at the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012 in Dublin.{credit}Subhra Priyadarshini{/credit}

Though these people are far removed from the mandated topic of this blog — science in India — it is not everyday that one gets to sit and chat with such luminaries, and that too all at the same place. Hence, this blog, from the European Science Open Forum, 2012 currently underway in Dublin, Ireland.

And just to make it more contextual, though science like music and infectious diseases has no boundaries, here are some sound bytes from what these people have to say about science in India. (I’m making sure I earn my salary!)

Watson: “India is turning out to be a very interesting breeding ground for biological sciences. I have no doubt this excitement will translate into big achievements very soon.”

Venter: “It was a turning point in science when H. S. Khorana and Nirenberg discovered the genetic code in 1961. Indian science and scientists have it in them to make a mark internationally, though political boundaries hardly matter.”

Heuer: “You know what I think? The potential of the Indian people is here (points to the forehead). And that is immense. Don’t you think so?”

Bolden, Jr.: “75% of India’s space budget is dedicated to human needs…that is perfectly in sync with what we at NASA do. Our mandates are similar. NASA is encouraged with the progress in space technology in India.”

And there’s more.

These optimistic one-liners brimming with confidence over the scientific prowess of India bring us back to the question: Why is the country still so far away from producing its next Nobel Laureate? What does it all boil down to — money, attitude, education system, scientific rigour? What?

As Heuer feels in this short interview, it could be the money that’s stopping us from grabbing our best opportunities. Michael John Gorman, Director of the world famous Science Gallery in Dublin, which is planning a gallery in Bangalore,  says the country has just the kind of enthusiasm  to do science that the global science community looks out for. That’s the reason they chose Bangalore among the six cities worldwide where they want to create a gallery.

What then is still pulling us back? I know this question has been asked umpteen times in this blog and in the Nature India forum on Nature Network, and dissected threadbare in some of our recent articles (1, 2).  Yet after hearing these stalwarts praise science in India to the skies, I can’t but stir up the hornet’s nest again.

High on Higgs

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Watching the live webcast from CERN and the press conference thereafter, I could only sigh: Wish I were there today to witness history being made in particle physics. The rest of the day went in reading my colleague Geoff Brumfiel’s live blog from CERN and his witty analysis of the discovery of Higgs boson and, of course, the umpteen serious and funny takes on Twitter.

A little later I heard from Archana Sharma, the Indian staff physicist at CERN, who shared her excitement and the star-struck disbelief of a bunch of interns from India presently on a summer programme at CERN. The anticipation surrounding CERN’s scientific seminar on the “Latest update in the search for the Higgs boson” was so palpable at the Route de Meyrin that you could cut it with a kitchen knife, she said, prompting this beautiful piece for Nature India. Archana’s earlier pieces in the run up to today’s announcement have always made for wonderful reading and  have celebrated the Indian presence at CERN.

In India, there also has been much speculation[1, 2, 3, 4] on why Satyendra Nath Bose, the Indian physicist who lends his name to Higgs boson following his celebrated work with Albert Einstein, has gone unsung through the ages. In fact, there is much criticism of the fact that only the ‘H’ in Higgs boson is written in capital letter. This debate is not going to die soon, at least in the land of Bose, whose Bose-Einstein statistics has become the basis of most quantum mechanics as we know it today.

Having been to the dream tunnel, I fondly remember the time when LHC, ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and Higgs were explained in great detail to a group of visiting international journalists. This was in late 2009 when the ‘God Particle’ had already been made famous by the Hollywood production ‘Angels and Demons’ and all of us took turns to wink at the retina recognition machine. The search for the elusive Higgs boson was at a fever pitch and we were told they were expecting a breakthrough in 2011. All of it sounded as exciting then as it did today. In December 2011, the internet went viral again with a couched announcement that the Higgs boson might have been found.

As all speculation was finally put to rest today, I went back to the ‘CERN’ picture folder on my computer to run a slideshow of my time there — celebrating Higgs boson at my workstation! Here’s a picture taken at CERN that amused me no end then and perfectly fits the spirit of the party-goers tonight. Enjoy!

{credit}Subhra Priyadarshini{/credit}