A real criticism

Indians were never good at innovating, they are good at imitating. I don't know about Raman and Aryabhata. But, the truth is more complex and not so easy to digest. The majority of population in India still believes that just a minority group of people are brilliants, not them. They are made to think that way. People who speak english well, people who recites hymns and verses from the holy texts, the so called cross belts and the white skins from western world. I am not making any comments that bringing disharmony to the Indian secularism. But, the truth is India is a secular country just on paper. Rural population, who have the best practical knowledge, their brains have never been tapped and exposed to this world. We can say, we are the best. But, nowhere, english that separates us from the rest of the world. We can be good at clerical jobs. Not as scientists,leaders of the world or entrepreneurs. Thee will examples coming up as Nooyi, Mittal, Gandhi, Raman. But, remember, the people mentioned above are just Indian for namesake, not in their education and hence not in their way of thinking. Ramanujam was an exception, somewhere out of blue, but he too needed an Hardy to prove his prowess. He would have lost in darkness, if he did not get that so called ISO mark. We export all our materials to the western world which can't sold in our place anymore, superstitions, horoscopes have come to computer, hindu gods have crossed the himalayas, even shift of time zones and seeing the other world did not change us, Cow's urine is going to be marketed as a drink in our country, I read this yahoo news, rules against cow slaugter, child marriage, no contraception or abortions allowed, teenage preganencies though illegal is still prevalent in society, women are still child bearing machines and don't go beyond kitchen and bedroom. We are going nowhere until there is a social change in our country from where the education start. No point in saying three lines in the very first page of our book and forgetting it in the rest of our life. This writing has no correlation, but truth and pain can't be expressed in an organised way...

Education System in India

Dear Friends,

Education? What does it mean in India? Whats the education for?

If you ask this question in India, most of the people will answer that, the ultimate aim of education is to get good marks..Whats the use of this mark? Who is going to be benefited? 

If a guy/girl secure gold medal in the university education or secured 95 % in school education, then everyone consider that the goal of education has been reached.

Do you(blog reader) think its true?? 

Is it the main aim of education? 

Is the gold medal and the 95% marks fulfill everything???

To me, the gold medal & 95% marks are useless, unless the talents of these top brains have been used up for societal transformations and their works should reach and satisfy the needs of common people...These talents need to be exploited to do something for the country or for the people..They need to do something innovative.....

And there is a problem in doing innovation !!!

What sort of mind set, do you think, is needed for creative outcomes?

........................A mind with best thinking capability.

Do our education system make us to think???

No way....

Do our examinations, test our thinking capability?

If one can memorize(even mathematics), he/she can get 100% & even a gold medal in university...What an embarassing situation to our education system !!

But we say that Indians have the best capability of thinking....

If its true, then why didn't we do innovations?

Most of the time we are proud of Indian history...We say, Aryabhatta is from India, Ramanujam is from India, Raman is from India and so..We are proud of the past..Ofcourse we have to be. But we are saying this same history for the several decades..When are we going to create a new history with many more great people??

Come on, let us work for it... 

Some important facts on school(government schools) education in India:

1. Not many students have did experiments in lab(and by the way, there are no labs in many schools).

2. No sufficient qualified teachers are available in India..

3. Teachers(many, not all again) never went to school in time

4. Most of the government school teachers wanted their students to come to home tution. So that they can earn more money.

Then how India can do innovations? When all these things are going to be erradicated?

I want to bring an important information to your notice..

"In Tamilnadu, if a question in higher secondary school public examination paper appears difficult or something that make students to think(means that is not a direct question from the textbook), then there will atleast 10's of cases registered in high court on the next day..They will claim that the department of education should award full mark to all students to that particular question, just because it is not a direct question from book.."

See the mind sets of people..How stupid some people are?

Then how the quality of education will improve?

In addition, the TN government has cancelled the Engineering and medical entrance exams..Now there is no way for the students to think...A school student in India spend 10+2 years for nothing...

Rules need to be changed..A strong regulations have to be set to make education system is such a way to increase the thinking capability of students...

Dear blog readers, please think if the same education system continue for long, then we are not going to see a developed India...I can assure you this....We have to create awareness on all these aspects to do innovations..

We have to rise our country's pride to sky....

Blog readers please give your ideas and suggestions..

Aravind.

Science Research scenario

What I feel till today about science research in India is that there are no encouragement for any quality research. At the first stage the natural science studies are not at all promoted.. A student who tries to study Science has to face criticism at each level of his life, it is considered that student that are not good at studies only they study natural Science/Arts. Every child in India always cherish a dream to be an Engineer or a doctor. This could also be a probable reason for opening of endless Engineering colleges which produce thousands of Engineers but only for the shake of name. The engineering education in some of the premiere institutes are also not upto the mark now. Somehow I realize that the main is aim is just to join some firm or industry and then spend all life working for others. Job creation level is very low. Well I understand that attaining a job is a way of settlement in life but the basic eduction should not only focus on how to achieve job after completing the degree. What I realize during my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at HBTI Kanpur is that all the students somehow including me also, are focusing on only the factors that are valuable to get a job. Get a job at the end of third year of the degree and then feel free not to study anymore as the aim of getting a job has been accomplished. This is what that is going on in most of the engineering colleges. So overall in general terms engineers are just responsible workers for the MNCs and other students who focus on knowledge sooner or later realize that they are not at all utilizing their knowledge here in India as nobody cares about their credentials, their are no accolades for their hard work so they move to USA or Europe where they can work independently without any interference with colleagues.
The research in Engineering field is somehow very limited. First their are not much funds and proper equipments. If someone has started a totally new area of study then it take many years to really start a project, this is what I realize during my Fuel cell project at IIT Kanpur. However, all IITs are now collaborating to enhance the quality of research.
Other thing is that most of the time a good or bad researcher both of them are treated in same way in terms of salary, everyone should work independently and each researcher should produce their own funding and their own resources. In this way worthy people will get their motivation to work efficiently.
It can only be changed if all researchers want to change and if we really want to do some quality research, motivation should come from each individual as also discussed in previous postings. We should work for ourselves not for others. Why we Indians do hesitate in taking our own decisions, why do we rely on others. Being young India we should realize our strength and should be able to work independently. We have all the skills as all over the world Indian students are preferred by the leading researcher as they know that we are good at brains and can produce some good results so now we should come forward and work for ourselves. Collaboration is needed to work on global level and compliment each others work for the benefit of the globe.
Here I am just discussing about the general picture.
I look forward for more discussions.

Roads that last long!!!

Life journey has always ups and downs, just like a travel in the road where it has always been a bumpy ride,
Reasons and conclusions maybe different, but, major reason is, asphalt is completely different from all assumptions.
Though it belong to a rich class "polymers", it is still considered a cheap material,
There are fifty major asphalt companies in US and Canada,
All these are called pavement industry and none a polymer industry;
Thus, it needs only a civil engineer and not a chemist.
So, the test focuses on just one property, "strength",
"Shall we increase the thickness of pavement?", a typical civil engineer's thought;
Even brick and cement hardens at low temperature, but asphalt is considered to a hard stone.
Cracking is not a mere surface phenomenon,
Three point bending test at low temperature, with sufficient cooling equivalent to that of cold spell differentiates out good performing ones much clearly;
Ductile failure of notched specimen, which is equivalent to pulling the last layer to failure, answers spring thawing;
These test methods are currently implemented in Ontario province as a trial;
This is huge step forward considering the history of asphalt testing.
Besides, elastic recovery test after merely three hour of conditioning at low temperature gives same accuracy,
Acceptance of these test methods results in a huge loss to the industries, better quality asphalts, long lasting roads and above all a smooth ride in road.

Strong Motivation & Interest is needed for research.

Dear Friends,

I want to say some of my ideas on the importance of strong motivation & interest needed for a researcher.

We can see many scientists, who won Nobel prizes and big scientific awards, might not have studied the same subjects & might not have did doctoral degree in the field in which they got Nobel Prizes. Its very clear that the subjects that we are studying in college  or school is not going to be our fate, unless we are interested in that field. There are two professors in my college life who made me to realise this..

One is Prof.Yury Gogotsi from Drexel Nanotechnology Institute, Drexel University, Philadelphia. He used to say, motivation is the strong factor that makes you to achieve something great. THE WORD 'MOTIVATION' I MEAN HERE IS INTERNAL MOTIVATION, FROM OUR INNERSELF..HERE IT CAN BE RATHER CALLED AS INTEREST. Sometimes some speech from great people can make us to realise the meaning of this word. If one is motivated from outside everytime, it cannot sustain for long.So we need to have our own interest to achieve some specific goal..Ofcourse some sort of initiation is needed to give a startup..This cannot come right from birth..We all are not Ramanujam or Einstien. 

There is another Professor from Swiss Federal Ins. of Tech., Prof.Michael Graetzel, who also said that motivation & interest can take you to the place where you want to go..

If we set a vision or goal to achieve some specific target, we will start to work in vast majority of fields to achieve that target...Here we wont feel that I am a chemistry student, so I cannot do mathematics or I am an electronic engineer, so I cannot work in biology or so..We will keep working in any subjects to reach our goal..Its really true that if we fix our destination, we wont dare to travel in any path to reach that destination..Its all again depends on how much we are interested & motivated in reaching our goal.

But in India, students are not given enough opportunity to identify their goals..However strongly motivated or interested, one need some sort of constant encouragement (from professors probably) till they realise that failures are the part of research life. Without encouragement, those failures at initial stage of research life make us feel wierd and sometimes we may give up our goal..Infact I feel no such encouragement are given for young researchers in India..Always senior people's ideas dominate and youngsters ideas are never been utilized....If a student say some interesting idea to solve a problem, most of professors(not all) do not care and reject those budding scientific ideas..This is how Indian students are being brought up to the society, whom are considered, the pillars of future India....

But still, there are many good advisors and motivators(Research advisor most often) and because of them India is atleast sustaining the world's competition....

And, if a student(in India) secures low mark in exams, then the society affix a big stamp on them saying, he/she is worthless..I feel its not true in all the cases..Sometimes, the student might not have interested in that specific subject in which the exam is being conducted or he/she might have become nervous in examination atmosphere...Or he/she might not have liked the professor(sorry to say this, but its true.I myself have experienced this) who taught the subject and I can keep saying or .. or .. or...But the interest of those students need to be identified by some career counselling and they should be encouraged to work on their interest...I feel, this sort of motivation is very very important...If a student work on his/her own research interest(& prepared to work hard),  they will be the best in the world....

I remember some lines from the Nobel Lecture of Prof.Harry Kroto(Univ of Sussex..He was awarded Nobel Prize for the discovery Carbon Fullerenes, the third allotrope of Carbon).....

"My advice is to do something which interests you or which you enjoy (though I am not sure about the definition of enjoyment) and do it to the absolute best of your ability. If it interests you, however mundane it might seem on the surface, still explore it because something unexpected often turns up just when you least expect it. With this recipe, whatever your limitations, you will almost certainly still do better than anyone else. Having chosen something worth doing, never give up and try not to let anyone down."

(Source : www.nobelprize.org)

So we, young Indian researchers & students should not give up our interest & motivation in reaching  a goal.......

I feel, with this enthusiasm, we can achieve some great things in future which can make our  country as a best research hub in the world....

Aravind.

Some more contributers to this blog...

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your responses for my previous post.

The ideas and opinions that I am posting here are what I felt from my heart.

I really want to see India as a superpower in near future..

Some of my friends will be contributing to this blog, soon..I closely moved with them wherein I have seen some sort of enthusiam with them, in developing India & science.I am sure they are going to be a great contributers of  ideas on scientific research..We are just budding into the research field..Even at this stage we have realised research in India need to amended to a greater extent..

Hoping to see their posts soon...

Aravind.

Science & Technology Research in India

Dear Friends,

This is a blog to study the quality of science & technology research in India..With this discussion we should able to identify the problem in present day scientific research and presenting our ideas & opinions to rectify those problems.

The first thing I wonder about India is its vast human resource. We have very good brains to think & work. Unfortunately the funds for research are quite low. This is the only factor that makes many top brains of India to work for foreign countries. 

Can we blame them??

 

Its obvious for any human to stay in a comfort place. They wanted their family to be rich. 

We are so far good in aerospace research, software and nuclear research. However we are not upto the par of the world's advancement. 

We can see almost every technology that is being employed in India is based on foreign research outputs.. When are we going to produce commercially viable outputs to satisfy our own demands? What is the factor that is affecting our research quality???? 

To quote an example, I did my bachelors degree project in a famous research center for energy(not nuclear)..They are considered to be the best researchers India..I see many people, (the so called scientists in India), not all, just copy the scientific ideas from some research works(being published in research journals) done by foreigners. They change some variables from the original research for their experiments and publish them in another research journal. And this happens to be the case with my advisor.

Why this happens? Are we not capable enough to think on our own? 

Infact I couldnt find the answer when I was in India. 

When I came to France to do my Masters degree, I discovered the reason for it. 

Its nothing but our inability to take new decisions. It is not something that we can learn overnight. It has to be cultivated from school education. I see many European scientists do not dare to take new decision.If they invent some new technology they have guts to propose it to the rest of the world. But in our country we always clarify our ideas with a foreign scientist. We will be confident about our invention only after the acknowledgement from this foreigner. And if some new ideas emerge, we always think it may not work. But the real solution can only be achieved if we jump into an extensive research to give a shape to that idea.

Our country didnt earn any NOBEL PRIZEs for the past 79 years. This can be a good proof that we are not doing any original research. 

In India people feel that research is nothing but wasting money in labs. Infact its not true. If we invent or discover something new its going to earn a lot of money to the country. 

And I have many more things to write on this topic. I will do them in future discussions.

I request the blog readers to kindly post their ideas on how we can improve the science & technology research in India...All your ideas & suggestions are highly welcome. 

SOME DAY SOME OF OUR IDEAS MAY(SHOULD) WORK WHICH CAN BE EXECUTED BY SOMEONE(SOME OF US) AND PRESENT OUR COUNTRY'S TALENT TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.

Aravind.