Restoring Mental Health

AA Destroying The Social Lives Of Thousands Of Once-Fun Americans

Click through to Onion if the embed doesn't work.

Related, and also at Onion: Nation's Unemployment Outlook Improves Drastically After Fifth Beer.

N.R. Narayana Murthy on how to attract young people to science

After the recent announcement of the Infosys Prizes, N.R.Narayana Murthy (Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys) was interviewed by Gopal Raj of The Hindu.

Sidebar

BTW, the Infosys Science Foundation's website has finally been updated with a page filled with a citation, bio-sketch and "scope and impact of work" for each Prize winner. I have also updated this post.

* * *

Here's Mr. Murthy's prescription for making a research career "attractive to young people."

The best students will always go to where they get the best jobs and pay, and that is to be found in industry these days. A research career on the other hand, means protracted training and less remuneration. So how does one make such a career attractive to young people?

I have suggested several times to various institutions that for every paper that is produced in a world-class refereed journal, they could give Rs. four lakh. So that if you produce four papers in a year, then you have got Rs. 16 lakh. Add to that a salary of Rs. six or eight lakh a year, then you have got a decent sum.

Limitless Ladder: Part 5. Review by a Chemist

That chemist is Ashutosh Jogalekar (aka Wavefunction). An excerpt from his review:

So how does one do high-quality research in a resources and cash-strapped developing country? Rao’s approach is worth noting. He knew that the accuracy of measurements he could do with the relatively primitive equipment in India could never compete with sophisticated measurements in Europe or the US. So instead of aiming for accuracy, Rao aimed at interesting problems. He would pick a novel problem or system where even crude measurements would reveal something new. Others may then perform more accurate measurements on the system, but his work would stand as the pioneering work in the area. This approach is worth emulating and should be especially emphasized by young scientists starting out in their careers: be problem-oriented rather than technique-oriented. Another key lesson from Rao's life is to not work in crowded fields; Rao would often contribute the initial important observations in the field and then move on while it was taken over by other scientists. This also keeps one from getting bored. Embodying this philosophy allowed Rao to work in a vast number of areas. He started with spectroscopic investigations of liquids, moved to inorganic materials and further worked extensively on organic materials. Among other things, he has made significant contributions to unraveling the structures and properties of transition metal oxides, ceramic superconductors and materials displaying giant magneto-resistance. All these had special physical and chemical properties which were directly a result of their unique structures. Rao co-authored an internationally recognized book- “New Directions in Solid-State and Structural Chemistry”- which encapsulates the entire field.

However, sometimes not having the right technique can prove significantly debilitating. In the 80s, the world of science was shaken by the discovery of ‘high-temperature’ superconductivity in a ceramic material. In fact Rao had synthesized the exact same material - an oxide of copper, lanthanum and barium - more than fifteen years ago. However, the compound became superconducting at 30 degrees Kelvin and could be studied only in liquid helium. Unfortunately Rao was unable to do measurements at this temperature because the only relevant material available in his laboratory was liquid nitrogen, which boils at 77 K. If liquid helium had been available, Rao might well have been the first person to observe superconductivity in this material. In 1987, two scientists at IBM who discovered the phenomenon were awarded the Nobel Prize.

Book-Tweets?

Selva tweets:

Sampling of home library - Book 1: "One hundred years of solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The novel has one of the best opening lines.

Reminds me of Woody Allen's comment:

I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

Links ...

1. Voices, the IISc Newsletter: Snake Catchers of IISc.

2. Aditya Sinha, Editor-in-Chief, The New Indian Express: Plagiarise and Be Damned: An excellent op-ed on the plagiarism by Aroon Purie, "one of [India's] most powerful media moguls."

   Hat tip to Space Bar who notes, "...it's good to see a mainstream newspaper take on the issue and contextualise it."

Dear Infosys Science Foundation ...

Update 2 (29 October 2010): Just noticed this afternoon that the website now has a new page featuring a citation, biographical sketch and "scope and impact of work" for each Prize winner.

Update (27 October 2010; 7:30 p.m.): The presentation (pdf) at the Prize announcement is available; it has a brief citation from the jury for each Prize. This page (contrast it with this page from 2009) is yet to be updated with links to further info for each Prize winner -- citation, bio, etc. (like in this page from 2009).

* * *

Dear Infosys Science Foundation,

It's great to see that "Science" is your middle name. Please do it justice by doing the right things for your Prize.

You see, the Prize announcement was not accompanied by a well-written citation describing the scientific accomplishments of each of the Prize winners -- Laureates, as you prefer to call them. It has been almost 24 hours since you made the announcement, and the citations are still missing on your website.

Perhaps I need to spell out the implications of the missing citation.

When the citation is missing, the "young Indians" that you wish to "inspire" through your Prizes get to see only the money, but not the science.

When the citation is missing, the scientific accomplishments of your Laureates take a back seat to the fact that they just became richer by 50 lakhs. What did they do -- win a lottery?

When the citation is missing, you are not "[endeavouring] to elevate the prestige of scientific research in India", you are just using the Prize to flaunt the wealth of your founders.

Finally, when the citation is missing, your Prize is not an Indian version of the Nobel, it's just a private sector version of those CSIR awards^[*].

Bottomline: If you want your Prize to have the right sort of reputation and impact, you have to not just do it, but do it right.

* * *

^[*]: See my rant -- at the end of that post from 2006 -- about the S.S.Bhatnagar Prizes being announced without the Prize citations.

* * *

Thanks to Pratik Ray who also noticed the lack of citations in the announcement.

Infosys Prizes for 2010

The Prizes have been announced.

First of all, congratulations to the winners!

Three things that are noteworthy about this year's Prizes:

1. All the Prize winners -- except one -- are working in India. The lone exception is UCLA's Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare, who gets the Mathematics Prize. [Last year, Prof. Abhijit Banerjee of MIT won one of the Social Sciences Prizes; IIRc, his India-centric work was cited as the reason for considering him for what is essentially an "Indian" Prize. Perhaps Prof. Khare has some strong Indian connections].

2. The Social Sciences Prize is shared by two women: Prof. Nandini Sundar and Amita Baviskar. They are the only women among the six Laureates this year.

3. Prof. Ashutosh Sharma of IIT-K gets the Engineering Prize. [And the Jury for this Prize redeems itself after its null result of last year; see my rant about that fiasco]

Ram Guha on Politicians and Public Projects

Ram Guha's latest HT column -- That Family Feeling -- is about the wide gulf between Nehru's views and those of the ruling Gandhi family on naming public projects after their family members. The contrast is between

[Jawaharlal Nehru] had taken a vow that in the case of any school, project, or programme started in memory of his father (Motilal Nehru) or his wife, he would not participate in its inauguration.

and

At last count, some 400 government initiatives, institutions, projects and programmes were named after either Nehru, Indira or Rajiv.

In editorializing on this contrast, Guha takes an oblique swipe:

Jawaharlal Nehru would surely have been appalled by this use (or misuse) of public money for furthering ancestor worship. His rectitude and propriety stands in striking contrast to the behaviour of later members of his family. But it stands in contrast to the attitude of most other Indians too. For instance, one of India’s best-known scientists actually attended the inauguration of a circle named after himself in Bangalore.

The later Nehru-Gandhis may think that the ubiquitous naming of programmes and places after members of their family is not much more than their due. But that distinguished men of science fall prey to such vanity is a sign of how far we have moved from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. [Bold emphasis added].

Some of you may know that the traffic round-about in front of the main gates of IISc is called "Professor C.N.R. Rao Circle". I don't know what it was called earlier, but it took its new name in the late 1990s.

Links ...

1. Mark Liberman at Language Log: Merle Haggard's ex-wives. Has some great examples of hilarity produced by the absence of the final serial comma -- like in, "This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God". Though these examples are not original to LL, you get them all here in one place.

2. Bad news for British universities: "the amount of money going to higher education will decline by 40 percent over the next four years, from 7.1 billion pounds (about $11-billion) to 4.2 billion pounds (about $6.6-billion)."

3. How do you "measure academic value in dollars and cents"? Texas A&M University shows the way: Putting a Price on Professors. [See also: A Tale of 40 Professors at Texas A&M by Richard Vedder.]

4. Yet another story on Kota (Rajasthan), the cram school capital of India. This one is by Tim Sullivan of AP.

Links ...

1. Ashutosh Jogalekar: Ethics and Indian Science.

2. Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing: The New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator!

3. Dave Marcus in NYTimes: A Father’s Acceptance: His Son Won’t Be Following His Ivy Footsteps

4. Thorbjorn Jagland (Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee) in NYTimes: Why We Gave Liu Xiaobo a Nobel (Hat Tip: Rahul Basu)

Flash Opera!

While we are at it, here's "Do Re Mi" at a train station in Belgium (YouTube seems to have tons of these improvs from all over the place):

In case the embeds didn't work, here are the links.

May be we should dedicate this link to Aroon Purie

Five Great Men Who Built Their Careers on Plagiarism over at Cracked.com.

The article uses incendiary language that goes way over the top at times (seems like it's the preferred style at Cracked.com), but it builds its case against the five men with ample references.

Perhaps we should dedicate this link to Mr. Purie, whose special skills include plagiarizing under jet-lag and "[writing] an apology that is defiantly nonapologetic." Check out Rahul's post and Grady Hendrix's note.

Thanks to Nikhil Narayanan for the Buzz.

When an academic study is about a sponsor's business interests, ...

... shouldn't that fact be disclosed -- especially if the study goes on to claim that "the [Pohang Iron and Steel Company] project would directly and indirectly generate 8.7 lakh jobs, and would contribute 11.5 per cent to Orissa's economy by 2017"?

The culprit here is NCAER -- National Council of Applied Economic Research. And the report is here.

Here's Priscilla Jebaraj in The Hindu:

... it has not been publicised that Posco is a sponsor of NCAER. While the Korean steel giant is mentioned on the list of sponsors and partners on the NCAER website, there is no disclosure of this conflict of interest in the published study.

Instead, in the preface to the report, NCAER Director-General Suman Bery merely states that the organisation was “approached” to carry out a cost benefit analysis of the project, and adds that: “It is NCAER's hope, the policy planners would find the report relevant and useful.”

“We do have processes in place for vetting the professional quality of our work. Our normal procedure is to indicate who the sponsor was in the foreward,” Mr. Bery told The Hindu on Wednesday, admitting that Posco had paid for the study.

“We do keep our ethics policy under review. If we were to release the report today, I think there would be a somewhat tighter formulation.” [I have added the bold emphasis and the link to NCAER Sponsors page]

On more on the Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops

This one is from Latha Jishnu in Down To Earth. Money quote:

It transpires that the academies held just one meeting, on June 1, before the report was compiled. In their own words it was “a brain storming meeting which was attended by a cross section of Fellows and nominees of the Academies”. The report does not list who was present but says the document is based on “a few introductory presentations”, the written comments by Fellows “and the documents brought to the attention of the meeting by different Fellows.” According to one insider, it was a meeting “where the decision had already been taken to push the case of Bt brinjal”. It is not as if there was no dissent. [Bold emphasis added] Some half a dozen scientists did raise concerns about safety and environment impact of GM crops but they were outnumbered by the pro-GM lobby of around 50 scientists.

Since the faculty salary is so low, ...

... a senior professor at IIT-KGP appears to have chosen some shady ways to augment his income:

[Amit Kumar Ghos], a senior professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, is under police investigation for allegedly using the IIT campus and brand to run an institute whose courses and diplomas have no legitimacy whatsoever. [It is ] perhaps the biggest scam to hit India's top engineering school ...

[It has been] alleged that Ghosh ran an institute called the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) out of the Kharagpur campus, calling himself its President.

He even conducted their admission tests in his IIT office. Each student was allegedly charged a fee of Rs 27,000 for the course.

And here's the clincher:

Ghosh ... was ironically also the chief vigilance officer (CVO) of the IIT till recently.