At the cost of quality

The decision to provide financial rewards for publication in science journals and patents is fraught with problems

On January 30, a little more than four years after the last hike, the Ministry of Science and Technology increased the fellowship stipend for PhD students by nearly 25%. The government says the hike will be reviewed periodically. Since the increase is far less than the 80% hike that research fellows have been demanding for the last six months, they have decided to continue with their protests. The government is also planning to provide “financial and academic incentives to enhance and recognise the performance of research fellows”, for which an Inter-Ministerial Empowered Committee has been set up. Excerpts of the Committee’s recommendations, tweeted by the Department of Science and Technology on February 2, provide a glimpse of the financial rewards to be given for publication and patents. While the modalities are yet to be worked out, offering financial rewards for publication is a bad idea.

Cause for concern

Giving rewards based on papers published in journals, and determining the incentive based on whether the paper is published in an international or Indian journal, is fraught with problems. In China, for example, researchers were given about $44,000 in 2016 for a single paper published in prestigious journals such as Nature and Science . The impact factor (a proxy for the relative importance of a journal) of journals was used to calculate the prize money for publication. This led to an unprecedented increase in unethical research practices and frauds committed by Chinese researchers. This could also happen in India, which already has an ignominious record in this area and has no nodal body to address scientific frauds and unethical practices.

In India, a one-time financial reward of Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 20,000 has been recommended for a paper published in an international and Indian journal, respectively. This is a “hare-brained scheme,” says P. Balaram, former director of the Indian Institute of Science and former editor of Current Science . “Whoever has come up with this is ignorant of the history of scientific publishing. They will destroy research (with this scheme).” It is worth remembering that though the University Grants Commission’s intent to introduce Academic Performance Indicators was good, APIs were largely responsible for the spike in predatory journals published from India. There is little guarantee that the reward system based on publication will not lead to further erosion in the quality of science research in India.

In addition, giving greater rewards for publication in international journals makes no sense as international journals are not uniformly superior in quality to Indian ones. While Nature, Science, Cell and The Lancet are prestigious, there are many journals which are of poor quality. Similarly, some Indian journals are better than international ones despite having a low impact factor.

“If average or below average papers are submitted to Indian journals, the overall quality of the journals will be low compared with international titles,” says Professor Balaram. By giving 60% lower stipend to students publishing in Indian journals, the government will unwittingly be widening the gap between Indian and international journals, which will be self-destructive in the long run.

Also, “Indian science suffers from deep-rooted, structural problems — fellowships get delayed and project funding is not released on time,” says Gautam Menon, a computational biologist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. He argues that “the government should reward good research with generous funding and fewer constraints.” With hundreds of papers being published each year, it is debatable whether the government will be able to provide incentives given that research labs have reportedly been facing a fund crunch of late.

Reward for patents

The proposal to provide students an incentive of Rs. 1,00,000 on obtaining a patent (Indian or international) is a bigger recipe for disaster. While obtaining a patent is not difficult, it costs Rs. 10,000-Rs. 30,000 to file a patent in India. Drafting the patent costs an additional Rs. 50,000 and there is also an annual renewal fee. Also, not all patents translate into products. The Science Ministry has not learnt from the mistakes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In late 2016, the CSIR instructed its 38 labs to stop indiscriminate filing of Indian and foreign patents. Then CSIR Director-General Girish Sahni had said that a “majority of patents are ‘biodata’ patents” and had been “filed for the sake of filing without any techno-commercial and legal evaluation”. In such a scenario, a financial incentive for patent-filing will only exacerbate the problem.

prasad.ravindranath@thehindu.co.in

Source: The Hindu, 7/02/2019

Create a research culture for the growth of science in India

Our best can be also be more daring in the questions they themselves address, thinking with more originality and ambition

On January 26, India entered its 70th year as a republic. With our economic and geographical size, and our young population, India shoulders a great responsibility to our citizens and to the world. In this, science has a key role to play.

Today, our planet is in a perilous state. Our route to this precipice started at least a century before 1950. Industrial revolutions and their consequent growth pulled hundreds of millions into the middle class, first in the West, and later, elsewhere. Some analysts have pointed out that health benefits, education, assured food and housing are available to more people now than ever before. In India, primary health and vaccination programmes, education, the green revolution, and liberalisation have moved us from a near-static economy to the world’s fastest growing one. However, the way we, on earth, have grown, has caused climate change, consequent global warming, and major environmental degradation.

The development of new technologies leading up to, and including, the fourth industrial revolution have also greatly sharpened inequalities, concentrating extraordinary wealth and power in the hands of a global elite. If we are to retrieve our planet, we need to address these prevalent threats as well as emerging ones. This needs to be done while satisfying the legitimate demand to take all our people out of poverty. Success requires a new route and meaning to growth. Here, science in India can define this new approach and shape it.

The most important role for our scientists today is in the training of the next generation to make critical thinking second nature and research commonplace. Our best science and technology research environments cater to less than 5% of our students. Quality research, driven by the search for knowledge understanding, must also be done in our state universities, which cater to 95% of our students, and where first generation students enter in the millions. Tomorrow’s global elite will have the exploitative power, not only from material resources, but mainly from the ability to use data. A poorly educated workforce will make India a vassal state, with our rich data parked elsewhere and our population impoverished by the lack of understanding and control over its use. Mathematics, statistics and data science, along with computer science, need to be added to foundational skilling, through language-neutral teaching material accessible in quality across our geographies.

Our best scientists and science institutions are fully up to this task of expanding the footprint of research and excellence. Over the past two decades, the median quality of our researchers has gone up noticeably. From theoretical physics and mathematics to cell biology and health research, more Indians are globally noticed. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Ritabrata Munshi in computer science and mathematics are examples as are Upinder Bhalla, Yamuna Krishnan and Rohini Godbole in neuroscience, chemical-biology and high-energy physics respectively. Yet these, and many other such scientists come mainly from a handful of institutions. These institutions must now lead in the expansion of quality, so that there are more of them.

Our best researchers must be more daring in the questions they themselves address, thinking with more originality and ambition. Currently, with some notable and admirable exceptions, such as the ones named above, our excellent scientists and institutions aspire, at most, to be as good as those elsewhere. While this does not seem a bad goal, it destines us to be followers of moving targets set by others. We should simply aim to address and solve the most challenging problems, fundamental or applied, national or global. If we do this, we can be better than the best in many ways, while others are the best in their own ways. If we focus on trying to be the best by imitation, we may be very good by global metrics but very boring, unimaginative and without national and global impact. Our best will be admired for their ability to fit in and serve imaginative leaders from elsewhere, but rarely for our ability to break new paths.

Our scientific ambitions can and must be diverse, from abstract mathematics to cosmology, and everything basic and applied, in between. Our major sites of investment in intellectual power, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad etc can leap ahead if they form hubs in each city that link to develop spokes elsewhere, locally or thematically. In past decades, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have been playing nationally transformative roles. Today, these and other institutions must be ambitious again. They have the leadership to do so. The IISc, for example, can and must form a confederation of major institutions in Bengaluru, which keeps intact and enhances their best features and autonomy but links them inexorably in teaching, research collaborations and ambitious projects. This can be done in other cities too, led by each major institution there. Such clusters have been articulated top down in the past few years. But our great scientists and science leaders need to demonstrate bottom-up hunger too. The population of Bengaluru is comparable to that of the Netherlands. With leadership from the IISc and partnerships from the best institutions in Bengaluru, the IT-Biotech engines, the labs of ISRO, DRDO, CSIR, IARI etc., magic can be worked. And, while doing so, this cluster can help transform our state universities.

India can grow rapidly in a sustainable manner. For this to become reality, our leading scientists and institutions need to combine their competence with a comprehension that moves us to firmly address big issues intelligently. With courage and original thinking, a science powerhouse that is different, but as remarkable as those in the UK, Netherlands or Sweden, can bloom in every major hub. This can actively stimulate the spread of a research culture among our students in the spokes. The creation of such a culture is our primary investment for progress and the only insurance against the vagaries of the future.

K Vijay Raghavan is the principal scientific adviser, government of India

Source: Hindustan Times, 5/02/2019

If knowledge is power, language should be no bar

India is experiencing a schism between mythology and Science. This schism has its moorings in the fact that most scientific knowledge is unable to percolate among the non-English-speaking populace of the country. If we seek a knowledge revolution, speedy and large-scale translations may be in order.

The progress achieved over the last few decades in India is marked by a series of revolutions. The green revolution, for example, achieved self-sufficiency in food; the white revolution accomplished a similar victory in milk production. We may envisage the advent of yet another revolution that will provide the foundation on which any other future revolution in India would occur. We may describe it as the revolution of knowledge or, poetically, an Exultation of Light.

Although there has been a lot of talk by visionaries like Shri Sam Pitroda and late Shri Abdul Kalam, Indian society is plagued by a severe starvation in terms of knowledge. Knowledge always begs the question of a medium, a receptacle, a language in which that knowledge is captured. There is an ocean of knowledge in English and other world languages. But the fact that only a very tiny portion of it percolates into Indian languages leads to a kind of mental malnutrition, a grim fact of which our societies do not seem to have yet fully grown conscious.

A few revealing statistics are in order. If we accept Wikipedia as a standard repository of knowledge, the number of articles in Indian languages relative to those in English and other dominant world languages is quite disappointing. The number of Wiki articles in English, Swedish, German, and Chinese (in millions) are, respectively, 5.7, 3.7, 2.2 and 1. Corresponding figures (in millions) for some of the highest-scoring Indian languages are: Hindi (0.1), Urdu (0.14), Tamil (0.12), Telugu (0.07) and Bengali (0.06). Similar comparisons may be drawn between the largest of Indian libraries and the best libraries in the world. The largest library in the world, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, has 162 million holdings. The second position is occupied by the British Library in London with 150 million holdings. By contrast, the largest library in India, the National Library of Kolkata has only 2.2 million books while the Anna Centenary library has just 1.2 million. It is noteworthy that in both these measures (Wiki articles and libraries) the figures corresponding to the dominant languages of the world and Indian languages differ by about two orders of magnitude. It appears that Indian society does not particularly fancy knowledge; it wishes to live in a void where knowledge is uninvited.

It is not difficult to see that a society that lives in a vacuum of knowledge sits in a precarious position, with uncultivated inner potential, unrealised outward opportunity. Nowhere is the deficiency starker than in matters of our history. The average common Indian seems to believe that India had a glorious and resplendent past, as per the picture painted in our epics. The ultimate objective of any social progression is then a regression back to that past glory — a perfect Ramarajya. It is shocking to note that the lay Indian scarcely distinguishes between mythology and history. Not many understand that Ramarajya was a mythical concept, it did not exist in the historical timeline, like the pyramids or the dinosaurs. In popular Indian imagination, demons and demi-gods, god-kings and gnomes, yakshas and yatis all mingle freely, transcending all boundaries of space and time. There is a need to ameliorate this situation by infusing massive amounts of material, from both mythology and history, into Indian-language literatures.

Why should our knowledge of mythology be confined to our own epics, itihaasas, and myths, the 18 puranas? Our children would do well to familiarise themselves with Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, North and Central-American mythologies too. In the domain of history, it would be a splendid project for the community of Indian historians to create an extensive body of literature pertaining to world history in every Indian language. It could be a voluminous, prodigious and an encyclopedic work, running into about ten thousand pages, aggregating all of known human history. It must be written, however, in an easy language, keeping the lay Indian reader in mind. Access to such a scholarly body of literature will give a strong fillip to every one of our creative endeavors — films, TV, novels, poetry, music, dance and drama. It will have a positive influence on our polity, may inspire deep social reforms, or suggest more effective forms of governance. Such a profound historical awareness will equip our societies to defend themselves against the malicious influence of bigots and zealots and cultural fanatics, who mislead whole generations through vigorous propaganda buttressed only by backward scholarship. It will give our society a more objective perspective of our past, of our place among the world cultures, and, most importantly, of the secure and glorious future that we are collectively trying to envision and co-create.

Another area that benefits from a massive infusion of knowledge is the domain of Science. Science in India is generally considered the special preoccupation and prerogative of “science students” and “scientists”. Scientific research is an esoteric affair confined to the ivory-tower walls of our universities, these “temples” of learning (an anachronism that prescribes a religious attitude even in areas that require perfect objectivity). The future of humanity, at least as envisioned by futurists like Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Michio Kaku, and others, is a world that is shaped and upheld by a scientific outlook. We are living in an era that sees a progressive encroachment of Science in areas that were off limits for science in the past. A scientific, empirical approach is being attempted today even towards seemingly intractable questions like the nature of Consciousness and God. Therefore, Science must be permitted to step off its hallowed altars of educational institutions and walk among the commoners. Science must be shaped as a tool for individual growth and handed out to the common man. Vast tracts of untested or obsolete belief systems permeate the Indian mind today. The next generation of Indians would ideally grow on strong traditions of scientific empiricism, reconfirming, to the extent possible, data that is inherited from the past, and allowing all that does not stand the test to slip quietly into oblivion. A massive effort must be undertaken to create comprehensive, easy-to-understand, scientific literature in all Indian languages.

Freshly creating such a great body of literature, in so many languages, in a meaningfully short social and historical duration, would be nothing less than a miracle. It is only pragmatic, therefore, to depend on translated writings to achieve such an end. Translation work is sometime looked down upon in India. But in history there have been large translation missions that have had a tremendous regenerative influence on the societies that supported them. A remarkable example was the Toledo experience. In the ancient Spanish city of Toledo, a massive translation work was undertaken with royal support stretching over the 12th and 13th Centuries. It was initiated by Archbishop Raymond in the 12th Century, and saw its consummation under the reign of King Alphonso X. The translation was initially done from Arabic sources to Latin, but in later to the native language of Spanish. Such large-scale translation movements in Europe were thought to be the redeeming power that dragged medieval Europe out of the dark ages, ushering in the scientific and cultural Renaissance. On similar lines, massive translation efforts must be undertaken in every single one of the Indian languages.

There must be a government policy by which all the public university faculty must contribute in a variety of meaningful ways to rural education in India (such initiatives have been taken up, albeit in slightly tyrannical form, in the Maoist regime, as a part of the Chinese Cultural Revolution). They can visit government schools, for example, and give lectures. The aim of these lectures, delivered in lucid and native language, is not merely to help the village kids in test-taking, but to inspire them and expose them to the most impactful ideas of the modern world. Or they can write books, or train and motivate government-school teachers. It must not be a million disconnected efforts. All that must be done as a part of a grand, solid, coherent, and well-thought-through framework.

In the latter part of his life, the former President of India, Abdul Kalam, often spoke of a mission called PURA — Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas. The aim of this mission was to bring high-quality urban facilities to the villages. This is a laudable goal but will have to face the challenge of funds. I propose an intermediate step that can greatly facilitate the realisation of the aims of PURA. One may call this mission Providing Urban Knowledge Amenities to Rural Areas (PUKARA). Move the knowledge that makes the urban world tick, knowledge that is behind urban wealth and urban energy, to the rural world. Make that knowledge available in local language literature in village libraries, teach it in village schools. Access to modern knowledge in native tongues will greatly empower rural India. (At IIT Madras, with funding from the Institute, a group of us have undertaken a modest project that publishes popular science books in Indian languages, and send them freely to rural schools and NGOs engaged in educational activities. Currently, the work is confined to Tamil and Telugu, due to constraints in access to human and financial resources. But we hope to expand to other Indian languages over the years.)

The section that we condescendingly call the “masses” must be empowered through knowledge, which must be abundant, affordable and accessible in local languages. Once people learn, they can uplift themselves by creative, inspired self-effort. Right now in India most of the visible progress — all the ‘shaking’ and the ‘moving’ — is driven by the English-speaking section, or at least the section that is influenced by the knowledge available in English. English puts you in contact with the great progressive movements of the world. All that movement is driven by knowledge of a very specialised kind, which is present in English and other world languages. If such knowledge is also ported to Indian languages on a massive scale, we can anticipate the Second Wave of growth in India, similar to the First Wave that occurred with the birth of the IT industry in the ‘80s. When that happens, the groundswell of creativity and energy that will be unleashed in our country will probably be unprecedented in human history.

Source: The Hindu, 4/01/2019

Why CSIR and other science labs should be given more funds, not less

The cutting of funds to research labs, such as those under the CSIR, will make it harder for researchers to continue to work in the country

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is among the country’s largest research and development organisations. This year a letter from the director general has informed all of its 38 that they will have to generate their own funds to keep the labs running. This has been the trend since 2015, when as part of the Dehradun Declaration, the CSIR decided that about 50% of its budget would have to be raised from external sources. This, coupled with the 7th pay commission requirements, has left the CSIR with only Rs.360 crore instead of the usual Rs.1,400 crore annual budget for research labs this year. All indications are that this fund crunch is expected to continue in the years to come.

Higher science in India is already a very under nourished area. In many colleges and universities, even basic equipment and materials are hard to come by. The state of labs in premier universities for masters and doctoral scholars leaves much to be desired. At a time when countries such as China and South Korea are increasing the funding allocated to cutting edge research in science, India’s cutting the budget will make it that much harder to compete in an international stage. This puts additional pressure on CSIR-funded research labs to raise funding from the industry. The pressure to conduct research in only those areas which are profitable and can be sold to the industry will make it harder for scientists to focus on areas of fundamental research in core sciences that may or may not have profitable applications.

In attempting to make academic research more industry-friendly, the government and CSIR must not lose track of the ultimate aim of research which is to push the boundaries of human understanding and scientific knowledge. Fund cuts to higher education, be it in the sciences or in the liberal arts and humanities, will only make it harder for researchers to continue to work in the country. Many scholars will look to other countries with better funding to migrate to. In order to prevent such a brain drain, there needs to be more investment in research, not less. Countries such as China have special incentives for researchers who wish to return to their country to pursue research. India must also strive to provide a conducive environment for advanced research.

Source: Hindustan Times, 7-06-2017

Humanity’s race against itself

Humanity

is engaged in a highstakes race with its own growth: lest our use of energy and materials get out of control, we must constantly innovate to become more efficient. Unfortunately, new research suggests we may be losing.

The rapid advancement of electronics technology illustrates how the race works. The number of transistors in the world’s devices has gone from one in 1947 to a thousand billion billion today—more than there are letters in all the written text produced in human history. The proliferation hasn’t inundated the planet because the amount of physical material and energy used in each transistor has shrunk spectacularly, reflecting a relentless advance—seen in almost all technologies—that gets economists and tech enthusiasts excited about the possibilities for a cleaner and more environmentally friendly future.

The hope is that by doing more with less, we can keep growing without bumping up against physical limits— an optimistic vision sometimes called “decoupling”. But is there any evidence for it? That’s less clear.

Long ago, the economist William Jevons noted that improvements in energy efficiency, by reducing prices, often induce people to use still more energy. For decoupling to work, efficiency gains in energy or material must outpace this “rebound effect”, as well as other factors such as overall growth in production and population. Despite all the progress humanity has made, a new parsing of the empirical data suggests that’s not happening.

Two engineers, Christopher Magee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tessaleno Devezas of the University of Beira Interior in Portugal, looked at two sets of data covering 116 different technologies existing between 1940 and 2010, ranging from the chemical industry and electronics to metals, wood and energy. Almost every technology over this period shows exponential improvement (though at different rates) in prices, performance and efficiency of energy and material use. Over the 20 years up to 2009, for example, the price of photovoltaics consistently dropped about 10% per year.

The improvements weren’t enough, though, to outpace the combination of population growth, economic expansion and the rebound effect. As a result, overall material use tended to increase: those photovoltaics, for example, consumed about 13% more materials each year.

To be sure, the data are far from perfect. Information on many of the 116 technologies exists over intervals of only one or two decades. Still, the fact that none of the data fit the usual story of decoupling suggests that the concept is at the very least highly questionable.

The only six exceptions were technologies for producing substances such as asbestos, mercury and thallium—all toxic materials that were ultimately controlled by policy intervention and legal restriction.

The results don’t imply that humans won’t ever achieve decoupling. They simply suggest that the historical record so far isn’t encouraging, and that there’s no reason to expect it to happen on its own.

Magee and Devezas, for their part, remain optimistic. We might still find a solution, they told me, if we can manage to eschew politically motivated arguments and predetermined conclusions in favour of more good science and especially empirical work. The more we recognize the burden that ever-increasing materials use puts on the planet, the more we might be able to encourage forces of many kinds—market, government or spontaneous social movements—to counter the trend.

Source: 17 Feb 2016 mint ePaper

It doesn’t trickle down

Processes of knowledge diffusion reinforce inequalities. We need explicit pro-poor targeting of effort

There is much enthusiasm today for efforts to improve access to information about poor people’s rights and entitlements. In a much-debated recent example, Facebook’s “Free Basics” platform aimed to provide free access to a selected slice of the internet (including, of course, Facebook).

In arguing for Free Basics, Mark Zuckerberg said that “everyone… deserves access to the tools and information that can help them to achieve all those other public services, and all their fundamental social and economic rights.” I think we would all agree; less obvious is how much Free Basics would do that. Critics argue that it is a “walled garden” approach — indeed, a threat to net neutrality. There are other options using subsidised internet data packs, as in the proposal for India made recently by Nandan Nilekani and Viral Shah. On February 8, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) ruled against differential pricing for data packages; so the country will not get Free Basics.

Neither the Facebook proposal nor that of Nilekani and Shah includes explicit pro-poor targeting of efforts to enhance information access. Is that needed? It might be argued that it is likely to be the poor who are least connected now, so the gains will automatically be greater for them. Against this, those who have the hardware and are currently connected are less likely to be poor and will probably be in the best position to benefit from these initiatives, including enjoying any new subsidies.

Before India decides on how to enhance information access, more needs to be known about how well information spreads at present. There is already lots of “public information” out there relevant to poor people in India, and there are various dissemination channels, including the internet. Are the poor still sufficiently well-connected socially to tap into the flow of knowledge, or does their poverty come with social exclusion, including exclusion from information about programmes designed to help poor people? Is a more explicitly targeted approach called for? In short, does new knowledge trickle down?

In arguing for subsidised internet data packs, Nilekani and Shah use the MGNREGA as a motivating example. The MGNREGA created a justiciable “right to work” for all rural households in India. The most direct and obvious way the scheme tries to reduce poverty is by providing extra employment in rural areas on demand. This requires an explicit effort to empower poor people, who must take deliberate unilateral actions to demand work on the scheme from local officials.

In a book I wrote with Puja Dutta, Rinku Murgai and Dominique van de Walle, Right to Work?, it was found that most people in rural Bihar had heard about the MGNREGA, but most were unaware of their rights and entitlements under the scheme. Women were especially ill-informed about these matters.

Given that about half the adults in rural Bihar are illiterate, an entertaining movie made sense as an information intervention to try to inform people about the scheme. The setting and movie we produced for this purpose are described in Right to Work? and you can see the movie on my website, economicsandpoverty.com. The movie was tailored to Bihar’s specific context. Professional actors performed in an entertaining and emotionally engaging story-based plot whose purpose was to provide information on how the scheme works, who can participate and how to go about participating. The storyline was centred on a temporary migrant worker returning to his village from the city to see his wife and baby daughter. He learns that there is work available in the village under the MGNREGA, even though it is the lean season, so he can stay there with his family and friends rather than return to the city to find work. It was intended that the audience would identify strongly with the central characters.

With the aim of promoting better knowledge about the scheme in this setting, the movie was randomly assigned to sampled villages, with a control group not receiving the movie. Knowledge about the scheme was assessed in both treatment and control villages. Residents were encouraged to watch the movie but not, of course, compelled to do so. Some watched it and some did not. The movie was found to be successful in enhancing knowledge about the scheme.

In a new paper, “Social Frictions to Knowledge Diffusion”, written with Arthur Alik-Lagrange, I have used the movie to identify key aspects of how knowledge is shared within villages. The paper shows how such an information campaign can throw light on how new knowledge spreads within villages. It studies the impacts of knowledge, and the channel of that impact — notably, whether it was purely through the direct effect of watching the movie or whether it was through knowledge-sharing within villages.

While we find robust evidence of knowledge-sharing, the knowledge diffusion process within villages is far weaker for disadvantaged groups, defined in terms of caste, landholding, literacy or consumption poverty. For poor people, the direct effect of watching the movie is all that really matters to learning about the MGNREGA. In the main, it is the non-poor who learn from knowledge-sharing. There is also some indication of negative spillover effects for illiterate and landless households, suggesting the strategic spread of misinformation.

More knowledge about public programmes like the MGNREGA does not assure an effective public response on the service supply side.

The movie worked quite well in enhancing knowledge, but the supply-side response was still poor. Right to Work? also documents a number of specific, fixable deficiencies in the responsiveness of the MGNREGA in Bihar to the needs of poor people.

There is no denying that efforts are needed to improve the access of poor people to knowledge about public services that can help them. But these new research findings also suggest that such efforts need to be directly targeted to poor groups, rather than relying on prevailing processes of knowledge diffusion, which may simply reflect, and reinforce, existing inequities.

The writer, former director of the World Bank’s research department, is Edmond D. Villani Chair of Economics at Georgetown University, Washington DC

Source: Indian Express, 11-02-2016

OMG! MOMENT RETURNS TO INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS - `Lord Shiva, a great environment guru'

Mihika Basu TWEETS @mihikabMIRROR MIHIKA BASU





This is the gist of a paper that will be presented today. Last year, authorities had promised not to allow throwback to Hindu mythological claptrap in future

At a time when world leaders are furiously pushing for the use of science and technology to counter climate change, a cer tain section of academicians are looking towards Indian mythology to spread the message of sustainability.“Lord Shiva as a great environmentalist in the world,“ is the title of a paper that will be presented at the 103rd Indian Science Congress at the University of Mysore on Wednesday. According to the two-page abstract of the paper, accessed by Mirror, followers of Hinduism understood the importance of a clean environment well in advance.
The paper is part of a symposium on air quality in major cities in terms of organic and inorganic pollutants.
The claims by the writer, Akhilesh K Pandey, chairman of MP Private University Regulatory Commission, Bhopal, may not go down well with modern scientists, who base their works on evidence and facts.
Pandey's paper draws inspiration from the rudraksha necklace on Lord Shiva. “The word rudra means strict or uncompromising and aksha means eye. It illustrates the fact that Shiva is firm about his cosmic laws. Thus we can say that ancient Indians were very much aware about ecology and sustainability. Therefore, the objective of the article is to create awareness about the conservation of environment without causing harm to others,“ it says. From river Ganga to tiger skin, the paper tries to explain more about the God.
Last year, a paper presented at the Congress held in Mumbai sparked outrage among the scientific community after it claimed the science of flying a plane had been recorded by Maharishi Bharadwaj, long before Wright brothers. Facing criticism, the authorities had promised not to allow such papers.
A MEATY REMEDY TO MALNOURISHMENT
Experts at the 103rd Indian Science Congress have said that there is no denying the fact that non-vegetarian food does ensure significantly better nutritional intake than that of a vegetarian.
They said meat and fish consumption could be the answer to dealing with 194.6 million people in India who are undernourished ­ with 51 per cent of women in the age-group of 15-55 being anaemic and 44 per cent of children underweight as per a 2015 report from Food & Agricultural Organisation.
National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) director Dr AK Srivastava and NDRI senior scientist (animal reproduction) A Kumaresan said in a session on `Innovation in livestock sector for food, health and livelihood security in India' that animal foods are an important source of high-quality protein, minerals, vitamins and micronutrients.
“The importance of dietary animal protein can be well recognised because it contains essential amino acids, which are deficient in cereals,“ said Srivastava. NIRAD MUDUR
CAN CONCH BLOW AWAY AILMENTS?
Shankh or conch has a “special relevance for every Hindu and the blowing of shankh is the best way to prevent several ailments“, stated a paper that was presented at a symposium under the section Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences at the 103rd Indian Science Congress on Tuesday.
However, presentation of such papers is contrary to claims by Indian Science Congress authorities, who had last year said that only pure and evidencebased science would be discussed in the future. According to the paper, written by Rajeev Sharma, an IAS officer, blowing of shankh is the best preventive measure for psycho-somatic disorders as it accounts for both “physical and mental aspects of a performer“.
Sharma told Mirror that he had been practising this for nearly two-and-a-half years, and after he recommended conch therapy to nearly 40 people, they recovered from ailments like thyroid and cervical spondylitis, among others.He insisted that it was science.

Source: Mumbai Mirror, 6-01-2016

Ideas Over Methods

Deaton knows the importance of both theory and data in solving social problems.

As a first-year graduate student, confused about potential research fields, I had a conversation with Angus Deaton. He patiently explained to me his passion for solving puzzles. “You can do theory, or finance, or development, as long as the questions attract you. I would try to look at it as solving puzzles, if they interest you, and you want to find answers to them, research is fun.” This is how I started my research statement for the academic job market last year. After writing it, I realised it might be improper to use a private conversation for a job application. I emailed Deaton, asking for his permission. He replied quickly, “Yes of course, I’d be delighted and humbled.” When I heard that Deaton had won the Nobel Prize in Economics, I was not surprised in the least — it was long overdue. Deaton is one of those truly exceptional scholars who are purely excited by questions. He has worked on a breadth of topics — the theory of income and consumption, poverty, inequality, measurement of relative prices, health, foreign aid and more. In the 1970s and ’80s, economics as a discipline was grappling with drawing connections between the micro and the macro. How do small economic decisions made by an individual aggregate into the macro economy? How should we measure these small decisions? How should we estimate economically meaningful variables from observed data? How to break down big issues of development into manageable and actionable economic problems? Deaton has made an indelible impact in his quest for answers. The Nobel committee classified his contributions into three categories, of which the most important, in my opinion, is his research on consumption and poverty. His work on measurement through consumption rather than income, through surveys rather than aggregates, through tracking cohorts rather than individual households, laid the foundations of modern development economics. A common thread in all of Deaton’s work is an appreciation for both theory and data, and the importance of their coexistence in confronting social problems. The Nobel committee called it a “desire to build bridges between theory and data”. Never one to shy away from learning new techniques, his strong emphasis on putting ideas over methods has led him to become a vociferous critic of trends in applied microeconomics, and especially development. These are masterfully expressed in his article, “Instruments, Randomisation, and Learning about Development”. Prominent among them is his persistent critique of the so-called RCT (randomised control trials) revolution. To the best of my knowledge, Deaton has never criticised the use of RCTs as one important possible tool in the arsenal of development economists, but has little patience for it being treated as a gold standard and the solution to understanding economic problems in developing countries. The overemphasis on recognising simple causal patterns at the cost of neglecting theoretical building blocks in understanding the underlying mechanisms, the pitfalls of treating “approximately random” as actually random, limits on external validity, and channelling precious resources on the basis of methods rather than questions are some of his potent critiques. Much of his work on development — healthcare and health service delivery, measuring prices and poverty, and food and nutrition — has been focused on India. In his work with Jean Dréze, he brought into notice the crises of nutrition in India, which came to be recognised the calorie consumption puzzle: Why, despite growth in income at every percentile, had the composition of food intake, especially amongst children in poor families, deteriorated? Deaton has been a great ambassador for the profession — with a welcome touch of Scottish elegance. Even with his large frame, he is proudly dressed in a suit to work, with the signature bowtie and, sometimes, red socks. The writer is currently assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University 

Source: Indian Express, 19-10-2015

Aug 24 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi)

India's biggest religious congregation turns into testing ground for innovators

John Sarkar

New Delhi:





Tech companies are camping in Nashik Kumbh to study conditions of rapid urbanization and offering solutions that can help build smart cities

Around three crore pilgrims have gathered at the Kumbh Mela in Nashik this year, but sadhus and spectators aren't the only faces visible at the world's largest religious congregation. Innovators from organizations like MIT, Nokia, Wikipedia, the Tata Centre for Technology and Design, the IITs and Reliance Innovation Lab have started camping at the religious jamboree.They're viewing it as a unique opportunity ­ called the Kumbhathon ­ to work with a very large test group, study the stresses of rapid urbanization and create disruptive solutions in the domains of health, housing, food, payments and transportation.
Over 30 days, the Kumbh Mela has become for them a petri dish to test out frugal innovations that will one day power the smart cities of developing economies. “Our research team in Bangalore is looking forward to collaborating with MIT during the Kumbhathon in Nasik, to pilot innovations that will make a positive difference for rapidly growing communities,“ said Sophie Vandebroek, chief technology officer and president of the Xerox Innovation Group to Kumbhathon members, “Researchers at Xerox are addressing a wide range of urban challenges using a combination of mobile sensing, crowdsourcing, and prescriptive analytics to create actionable insights for cities and their citizens.“
The Kumbhathon is a year-round project set up by these organizations to brainstorm and come up with solutions to address the challenges of Kumbh Mela. For instance, a 17-year-old has designed a foot mat that can count footsteps.
“It can be placed anywhere and can help in sensing crowd movement, thus preventing stampedes,“ said Darnish Singh Kalra, co-founder of Lucid Lane, a creative agency that is taking part in the event. Stampedes are a common occurrence at the melas with the 1954 edition witnessing around 1,000 deaths.
Similarly, Twitter and Facebook-savvy gurus like Swami Chidanand Saraswati, founder of Ganga Action Parivar, along with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, secretary-general of Global In terfaith WASH Alliance, are working to support PM Narendra Modi's push for renewable energy . To make Kumbh clean and energyfriendly, the spiritual leaders are using their clout among devotees to promote the use of solar lamps sold by Urjakart, an Indian startup.
Mentored by tech companies, students too have hopped on to the Kumbh bandwagon with startup ideas. Two interesting apps developed by them for the mela are Epimetrics and Meditracker. While the former attempts to curb the spread of epidemics by digitizing doctors' logs across the city , the latter acts as a `911' service alerting medical personnel in case of any serious injuries.
Among other innovations playing a significant role at Kumbh is the concept of crowd steering using mobile towers, which is a real-time system that not only shows the density distribution of a large crowd but also tracks its flow, allowing people to be redirected away from saturated areas.There is also Annadan, an innovative supply chain that di verts food donated to temples to those who are hungry , thus reducing food wastage.

Here's the list of 8 words added to Oxford Dictionary's June edition

 We share with mid-day readers a list of 11 words that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) June edition

 >Arre (interjection): Used to express a range of emotions and commands, esp.annoyance, surprise, or interest, or to attract someone’s attention. [Firstrecorded in 1845]  

>Batchmate (noun): A member of the same graduationclass as another; a classmate. Also used in Philippine English. [1918]
> Revert(verb): To answer in speech or writing; to reply. [1973]
> Topper(noun): The leading student in a particular class, school, exam, etc.; ahigh-achieving student. Frequently with preceding word. [1971]
> Yaar(noun): As a familiar form of address: friend, mate. [1963]
A few more that we bet you didn't know werein the OED:
> Biodata(noun): Biographical details, esp. summarising a person’s educational andemployment history, academic career, etc. Used chiefly in North America andSouth Asia. [1947] 
> Videshi(adjective): In India: foreign; coming from a country other than India. [1980]
> Papad(noun): poppadom [1813]

Source | Mid Day | 3 August 2015 

the speaking tree - Knowledge For Common Benefit Drives Evolution

Anil K Rajvanshi





One of the basic tenets of evolutionary theory is the transfer of information. This happens when information encoded in genes of the male and the female combine to form an offspring. During the lifetime of the offspring, genes could get further modified ­ either via mutation or through the forces of environment ­ as per the laws of epigenetics and are further transferred to the next generation.Thus there is a continuous flow and transfer of information and knowledge.Information transfer is also aided by the increase of population and species. It is as if through procreation the Universal Consciousness tries to express itself and it could be the basis by which dark matter or dark energy is converted into visible matter and ultimately to life.
Human beings endowed with brain power and technology can also transfer information to future generations via their inventions, oral or written word, or in electronic format. This is in addition to what is transferred genetically, via biology.
As we advance technologically , the generation and transfer of knowledge will increase manifold. This follows the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that entropy or disorder of the system increases. A huge amount of information generated by humans and other advanced civilisations ­ if they do exist somewhere ­ is equivalent to entropy increase of the universe.
Most of the information generated in terms of profound ideas, great thought and strong emotions goes into Knowledge Space (KS). This is almost like cyber-library and is a space which may contain knowledge developed by us or any advanced civilisation. Very powerful and prepared minds can pluck the knowledge from KS and also contribute to it. This is the basis of all our great discoveries and inventions.
Also, as our brains are the product of the same timeframe as the Universe, we cannot think up more than what is there in the Universe. At best we can discover the already existing truths. Our thoughts and even our wildest imaginations are therefore constrained by the information available in the universe. However, as we make our brains more powerful, we can start adding our own knowledge to the existing KS and hence aid in the evolutionary process.
I feel that the purpose of life is to freely communicate the knowledge that one has obtained and add it to KS. This can be done in any form and gives us maximum satisfaction. As Comrade Peter Kapitsa, the Russian Nobel Laureate in Physics, used to say , “Scientists are like birds; not only do they like to sing but also want others to hear their singing!“ I think all of us have an urge to tell the world all about what we have discovered. This is the driving force for us to chat, talk and communicate and transfer any knowledge gained.
As a society we are evolving more and more as a knowledge-based entity .The rate of knowledge increase is proportionate to existing knowledge and hence it is our duty to help in this process in whatever way we can.
Too often, as human beings, we are focussed on having children, since we believe that our `vansh' or information that we perceive as heritage can only be transferred via genes. However, if we focus more on knowledge transfer, then the world will be a better place to live in with less population, more knowledge, and a sustainable and emotionally satisfying lifestyle. After all, what matters is our contribution to everyone's progress and common benefit.

Dec 05 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi) 1,000 new words in Oxford Dictionary London PTI   The Oxford Dictionary has added as many as 1,000 new words and phrases to its online version including `al desko', `lolcat', `Duck face' and `Obamacare', in its largest ever quarterly update.The online dictionary has added a raft of words including teenspeak, gaming terminology and business lingo.The entries by editors at Oxford Dictionaries reflect the influence of popular culture and include abbreviations such as lolcat (a picture of a cat with a humorous caption) and IDC (I don't care). While `Obamacare' is an informal term for a federal law intended to improve access to health insurance for US citizens, `al desko' means working at one's desk in an office. `Duck face' is an exaggerated pouting expression in which the lips are thrust outwards, typically made by a person posing for a photograph. Words such as mamil (middle-aged man in Lycra), silvertail (a person who is socially prominent or who displays social aspirations) were also added to the online dictionary , Guardian reported.

What is "Shodhganga" and "ShodhGangotri"?

"Shodhganga" is a National repository of electronic theses and dissertations with fulltext content based on UGC notification. As per the UGC Notification (Minimum Standards & Procedure for Award of M.Phil. / Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2009) dated 1st June 2009, it mandates submission of electronic version of theses and dissertations by the researchers in universities within 30 days of award of the PhD aiming at facilitating open access to Indian theses and dissertations to the academic community world-wide. INFLIBNET Centre has the non-exclusive rights to host the content on 'Shodhganga' with a disclaimer that IPR of the content is with the Research Scholars and Universities.
"Shodhgangotri" is a repository of electronic version of synopses/research proposals submitted to universities before awarding the Ph. D. Provisions are made in 'Shodhgangotri' and 'Shodhganga' for researchers to submit synopsis/theses online after registering into both.

2) Can I use 'Shodhganga' without registration?

Yes, registration is not required for browsing, searching and downloading the full text theses. You may download chapter wise or all chapters depending upon your requirement. But proper citation and acknowledgement should be done in your reference and citation.

3) I am a Research Scholar how I can upload my thesis?

For uploading thesis, You have to register into 'Shodhganga' as a 'Shodhganga User'. 'Shodhganga Administrator' will verify and authenticate user with proper user name and password. Theses should be split and upload as per the formats and standards suggested by INFLIBNET Centre for the uniqueness in order to maintain the standard and quality.

4) Can I upload my thesis in one PDF file?

No, INFLIBNET Centre follows standard format of uploaded files. Files should be numbered and named as shown in http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/manual/index.html#q9

5) My University name and Department name do not exist in Shodhganga or Shodhgangotri?

If it is missing, you may contact 'Shodhganga Administrator' at shodhganga@inflibnet.ac.in to create your university name and department name in 'Shodhganga'/ 'Shodhgangotri'.

6) Our University has not signed MoU and not in the list on Shodhganga. Can I send or upload my thesis?

As per the UGC notification, it is mandatory for all research scholars and universities to upload the thesis into Shodhganga. University needs to sign an MoU with INFLIBNET Centre for 'Shodhganga' project.

7) What should I do to withdraw my thesis from' Shodhganga?

INFLIBNET Centre and UGC do not encourage to withdraw the thesis unless requested with proper and valid reasons. To withdraw a thesis from 'Shodhganga' it is permitted only if a formal request is forwarded through Competent Authority of the University (ie. Vice Chancellor or Registrar) by citing valid reasons. In such cases, the embargo period should be between 6 months to one year period.

8) Is it possible to keep a part of the thesis under embargo period?

As mentioned above, a formal request is forwarded through Competent Authority of the University (ie. Vice Chancellor or Registrar) by citing valid reasons. However, embargo period should be specified so that after the period is over, thesis will go public for full text access.

9) I found problem in registering myself into 'Shodhganga' and 'ShodhGangotri'?

Kindly send the screen shots of the error. We will get back to you within 3 working days.

10) I uploaded my thesis but not displayed in Collection, Why?

Thesis will be merged with database only if it is in proper format, error free and in standard structure in its content. Please follow carefully the formats and standards specified by the INFLIBNET otherwise refer an old thesis for metadata, splitting the files and file naming conventions etc.

11) I submitted my softcopy of thesis to my university. Is it required to submit the softcopy online directly by myself?

INFLIBNET Centre encourages the research scholars to submit their thesis directly to 'Shodhganga' following by the format specified INFLIBNET Centre. The notification mandates submission of the softcopy within 30 days after awarding Ph. D. by university.

12) Can I get printout of Certificate of submission for my uploaded thesis?

Yes, provisions are made for research scholar. If the thesis is submitted by Research Scholar, he/she can take print out directly from the web site. INFLIBNET Centre do not provide any certificate for the thesis uploaded by INFLIBNET Centre or University.

13) My thesis is not in PDF format. How I can convert and split my thesis?

There are online tools available to convert files other files in to searchable PDF. Guidelines are provided in 'Help' menu on http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/moredetails/newmoredetails/dataformat.html and also in Manual athttp://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/ebook/

14) Is it mandatory to submit Synopsis or Research Proposal to ShodhGangotri?

'Shodhgangotri' is for Research in Progress details of ongoing researches in India. Submission will make you enable to claim your Ph.D title or topic in the national level before it is claimed by other research scholar. Shodhgangtri would provide a proof that you have registered the topic before others. (The topic/title will be publically accepted as the first registered topic and others may not be able to claim the same title/topic later.)

15) Do I get financial assistance to upload my thesis?

No, INFLIBNET Centre gives incentives to Universities who proactively participats in 'Shodhganga' Project for digitization of back volumes and setting up of ETD lab etc.

16) Do you test the content of the theses for the plagiarism?

No, It is the responsibility of Research Scholar, Research Supervisor (Guide) and Universities to check for plagiarised contents by using standard anti plagiarism software. INFLIBNET Centre provides Antiplagiarism software to the Universities only those which are eligible for getting grants from UGC (ie. Universities comes under 12(B) & 2(f))

17) Why my registration is delayed or not authenticated in Shodhganga?

You have to upload Ph.D. notification or certificate (scanned copy) awarded for Ph.D for registration. However, we are also permitting to upload registration notification so that the researcher can upload their thesis. However, merging thesis will be done only after receiving the Ph.D notification.

Source:   http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/

Jun 16 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

Business of research papers

GOURI AGTEY ATHALE





GOURI AGTEY ATHALE WRITES ON WHAT MAKES PUNE INC TICK Liked/hated her column? Write to Gouri Athale at punemirror.feedback@gmail.com Newer institutes, colleges take the easy route instead of enhancing quality and stringency of parameters

The monetary side of the business explains the attraction of hosting scientific and other high-end, knowledge-based conferences and subsequent publications of papers presented at the conference.The registration fee is between Rs 5,000-10,000 per head, if the conference is in India and the expected number of attendees is around 200-400 people. If the conference is international, then the registration fees are in the region of $ 300-500 per head. Do the math: it works out to substantial amounts with fairly low initial investment.
Participants also have to pay for the publication of their papers and according to people in the know, this is where they really make the money: the publications side of the conference.
Add that and the business is significant.
This has led to several sting operations by well established scientific and mainstream newspapers and magazines, exposing the racket. Nothing’s changed! Why is this relevant? Institutions pressure their staff (looking for tenure) and students to publish research, based on the ‘publish or perish’ philosophy. This gives rise to the business of hosting conferences where you might have been ‘invited’ but have to pay for your travel, stay and pay for the publication of your paper.
Quality is at stake, especially as newer institutes and colleges start their own journals, taking the easy route instead of enhancing the quality and stringency of parameters of existing journals. Academic rigour will get you quality but if you focus on just meeting the norm that an academic staff member has to have publications, never mind the quality of said publication, then a fall in standards is inevitable.
As a senior academic from Pune University explained, “This is a problem of the knowledge industry. Institutes require their staff to publish and there are elements who ensure that this happens... for a price. Universities have tightened their procedures and systems, ensuring their staff attend only credible conferences.” A young scientist and researcher at a well regarded institute in Pune told me of the high level of filters that he has set up on his email account.
Despite this, at least two-three invitations for in
ternational conferences sneak into his email.These are mainly from Chinese entities but not only from them: this business like a host of others, is global.
The practice is rampant in India as well as more and more institutes look for credibility and as more academic bodies insist on publications. Researchers and academics agree there is need for the academic community to take action by enforcing standards: consolidate the number of existing publications and improve their quality by enforcing rigorous and stringent standards.
The financial angle, however, has taken precedence over the academic. The financial angle for the entrepreneur and that of the academic/ researcher seeking a permanent post are the primary drivers of this business. Universities
and research institutes have begun to blacklist such entrepreneurs as well as tightened their grants to attend conferences that are not recognised nationally or internationally.The first filter that universities and research institutes have begun to apply is that any conference where the invitee has to pay to attend is a strict no-go: this is part of the realisation that academics is not the focus of the conference.
That this is not going to stop is clear because there is a paucity of funds in the ‘developed’ world as a result of the economic meltdown which makes holding of international conferences a money spinner. This is compounded by the premium emerging countries put on international publications, regarded as the gold standard. Eternal vigilance is the need, obviously!