Monthly Archives: November 2013

C N R Rao not alone in his anger

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Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao was ‘surprised‘ at receiving India’s highest civilian honour ‘Bharat Ratna’ last week. What pleasantly surprised the rest of the scientific community in this country was his vocal outpouring at the state of science funding in India. Though Rao has always advocated more funding for science and rued the lack of a strong science leadership in India, his current outburst calling politicians ‘idiots who have not given this country’s scientists their due’, is the most scathing on the country’s science bureaucracy. Rao later dismissed the hullabaloo saying the remarks were made ‘casually’ and that he did not ‘mean to be harsh’.

To an email seeking to understand this widely reported outburst, Rao replied, “There was no outburst on my part.  I only wondered  about the idiocy of people.” Rao said he feels that India should take up rejuvenation of scientific and educational institutions on a “war footing”. “Competition is increasing by the hour. I want India to be in the top 5 countries in science. Will it be?”

Seeking to clarify, Rao told a television channel that he thought he was speaking informally “to friends”. He said  the ‘idiot politicians’ remark was not made ‘out of anger’ but out of his concern over inadequate funding for science and his frustration to get the allocations increased to make India a scientific power.

TOSHIBA Exif JPEGBesides this, he also coaxed Indian researchers to work harder, “as hard as the Chinese”. “Starting next year, China will top the world with 16.5% of world research publications, overtaking even the US. The quantity of publication of research papers from India have remained at 2-3%. India is the worst. China is doing exascale and petascale computing. I am fighting with the government to invest money in computing,” he was quoted as saying.

Rao’s public expression of anger (or frustration as he chooses to call it) is the outcome of long years of fighting the system. That he used the occasion of announcement of the Bharat Ratna to air his feelings so strongly does not come as unusual to peers, colleagues and friends to know the fiery-spirited scientist for long years. “Knowing him well I can say CNR’s  comment about politicians is only an emotional outburst,” Valangiman Ramamurthi, former secretary to the Department of Science and Technology told Nature India.

It is this outrage that many in the science community in India feel but seldom express. Some do, but are rarely heard. A Nature India forum post discussed the issue of scientific funding some time back quite aggressively and another one was replete with issues that young scientists face in this country.

Coming from Bharat Ratna Rao — all of 79 and raring to go (his wife says he is still a ‘young scientist’ with lots of science in him) —  it will certainly be taken rather seriously. Or so one hopes. Rao happens to be the scientific adviser to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and recently created a buzz with a Scientific Advisory Council report which warned that the present situation in India is “not altogether encouraging” as there are many areas of science where India has fallen behind even small countries. Rao was the first Indian to reach the h-index of 100, publishing more than 1,500 research papers in his career spanning over five decades (h-index is based on the scientist’s publications and the number of citations they receive). He has close to 50,000 citations.

Rao is generally praised for his outspokenness though this time many thought the reference to politicians could have been avoided. The scientist himself is not new to controversy — once famously having said that information technology (IT) is not science and India is only producing ‘IT coolies’.
Here’s hoping Rao’s raging spirit culminates in some positive action in India’s government corridors. It will only be for the good of science in India.

String theorists regale in new accolades

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It was Ashoke Sen last year bringing glory to physics and string theory when he was awarded the maiden three million US dollar Fundamental Physics Prize  (FPP) instituted by Russian billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Borisovich Milner. Sen was picked up by Milner’s not-for-profit foundation for ‘uncovering striking evidence of strong-weak duality in certain supersymmetric string theories and gauge theories’, opening the path to the realization that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory.

Shiraz

Shiraz Minwalla

This year India and string theory have been recognised again in the Milner awards with the young physicist Shiraz Naval Minwalla from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research bagging the FPP’s $ 100, 000 New Horizons in Physics Prize for his pioneering contribution to the study of string theory and quantum field theory. Minwalla gets the award in particular for his work on the connection between the equations of fluid dynamics and Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity. Earlier this year, Minwalla was conferred the Nishina Asia Award (worth Japanese Yen 400,000) for “his seminal work which uncovered the deep relation between the equations of fluid dynamics and Einstein’s equations of General Relativity.” He also got the Rs 55 lakh Infosys Foundation Prize in the physical science category this week. (Last year, the Infosys Foundation Prize was valued at Rs 50 lakh.)

[The other scientists who got the Infosys Prize this year are V Ramgopal Rao in the Engineering and Computer Science category, Ayesha Kidwai and Nayanjoti Lahiri in Humanities, Rajesh S Gokhale in Life Sciences, Rahul Pandharipande in Mathematics and Aninhalli R Vasavi in Social Sciences.]

These high value awards have certainly turned the spotlight back on science in the last couple of years.

So does this signal a new-found love for string theory, which has been dismissed by critics as a theoretical cul-de-sac that has wasted the academic lives of hundreds of the world’s cleverest men and women? Do these awards mean the critics must stop considering string theory — which seeks to outline the entire structure of the universe in a few brief equations — as an intellectual dead end?

String theorists are clearly regaling in the accolades. Ashoke Sen, called “India’s million dollar scientist” by the media, sounds pretty optimistic. “The recognition for the great work that Minwalla has been doing is also a great achievement for the Indian string community as a whole and is a reflection of the high quality research in string theory taking place in India,” Sen says. He feels these new awards would change the face of science in this country and encourage youngsters to think of research as a fulfilling career. “Prizes like these reflect recognition by the society that science is important,” he says.

To Minwalla, the Milner prizes appear so far to have had a special focus on string theory, “perhaps reflecting Mr. Milner’s personal appreciation of the subject”. “I think this is encouraging for younger string theorists: students in particular. Prizes to Indians are likely to particularly encourage young Indian string theorists,” he said in an e-mail chat.

The physical sciences have been India’s traditional stronghold. Though Indian research in the physical sciences is reasonable, it could be much, much better, Minwalla feels. “The real bottleneck here is that only a small fraction of the 1.2 billion people in our country get a chance to participate in research. This is partly due to poverty, but largely due to the low quality of primary and secondary schooling doled out to the majority of Indians,” according to him. He feels that the paucity of really good colleges compounds the problem. In order to unlock India’s potential in research (as well as many other things) “we need to radically improve our public schools. This, of course, is a big task. ” But one that is surely achievable if tackled with the urgency and priority it deserves.”

At the moment, the young string theorist is trying to understand the dynamics of “nonsupersymmetric Chern-Simons field theories coupled to fundamental and bi-fundamental matter in the large N limit”. The results of this “very specific, detailed and technical question” could feed into bigger qualitative questions which he says he would love to address. One such question is “Can one construct one example of a calcuable non-supersymmetric theory of gravity with a parametric separation of scales between the Planck constant and the cosmological constant?”

Sen hopes more such recognition will come India’s way in future. Here’s wishing our young physicists and string theory more strength.