Volume 29 Issue 1, February 2021
 | First Published November 6, 2020; pp. 5–11   |
 | First Published August 27, 2020; pp. 12–27  |
| First Published April 25, 2020; pp. 28–44 |
| First Published August 17, 2020; pp. 45–61 |
| First Published December 13, 2020; pp. 62–80 |
| First Published April 19, 2020; pp. 81–96 |
On 2/01/2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology rolled out the draft version of the proposed Science, Technology and Innovation Policy. The process to have a new policy, subsequent to the 2013 one, was in the works since May 2020 (see here for our coverage of the same). And after a claimed 4 track process of consultations and “nearly 300 rounds of consultations with more than 40,000 stakeholders well distributed in terms of region, age, gender, education, economic status, etc” the present draft version of the policy is brought out for public consultation. The substantive portion of the policy is spread out in eleven chapters and for the purpose of this post we shall discuss the first chapter titled “Open Science”. It is to be noted – the Ministry of Science and Technology is concerned only with STEM type sciences, while research in social sciences seems to fall under the ambit of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, under the Ministry of Education. Therefore on the face of it, research in social sciences are not covered by this policy and it would thus be very pertinent to see whether the Ministry of Education will be joining this endeavour or not. As per the Press Release, the draft is open for comments till Jan 25, 2020 on email: india-stip[at]gov[dot]in
Is Access now granted (read Open)?
The draft policy places a lot of importance on Open Science and the need for publicly funded research to be inclusive and accessible. In pertinent part it states:
“Open Science fosters more equitable participation in science through diverse steps like increasing access to research outputs, more transparency and accountability in research, inclusiveness, better resource utilisation through minimal restrictions on reuse of research outputs and infrastructure, and ensuring constant exchange of knowledge between producers and users of knowledge. It is important to make publicly-funded research output and resources available to all to foster learning and innovation. STIP aspires to build an ecosystem where research data, infrastructure, resources and knowledge are accessible to all.” (emphasis provided)
Open Access Portal: The policy proposes to establish an open access, interoperable portal called the Indian Science and Technology Archive of Research (INDSTA). The portal shall be dedicated “to provide access, specifically, to the outputs of all publicly-funded research (including manuscripts, research data, supplementary information, research protocols, review articles, conference proceedings, monographs, book chapters, etc.).” Notably, INDSTA is to also support text and data mining, querying and visualisations.
Open Data: Importantly, the draft policy also proposes to make available all the data used in and generated from publicly funded research to the scientific community and public at large. The Policy suggests that all the data shall be available in Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) terms. These guiding principles provide both machines and humans better ability to engage with the vast amounts of data that is being generated in scientific eco-systems. (More on FAIR principles can be read here.)
It also states that wherever applicable, on the basis of grounds of privacy, national security and IPRs, data will be made available to the public, subject to anonymisation or redaction. Or if the same is not possible then, it will still be made available to “bonafide and authorized researchers”. While it is understandable that not all data can (or should) be made available, this does require clarity on what qualifies a researcher as a ‘bonafide’ researcher, what type of data is eligible for being kept away from the reach of the general public, etc.
Post-Print Repositories: The policy calls for an important Open Access mandate on manuscripts coming from public funds. It states,
“Full text of final accepted author versions of manuscripts (postprints and optionally preprints) along with supplementary materials, which are the result of public funding or performed in publicly funded institutions, or were performed using infrastructure built with the support of public funds will be deposited, immediately upon acceptance, to an institutional repository or central repository”.
The draft doesn’t elaborate on this but this type of a requirement would also have the double benefit of pushing all public funded manuscripts away from publishing in ‘closed’ journals, which traditionally don’t allow post-prints (i.e., post peer review) to be shared in accessible manners. This institutional push away from ‘closed’ journal publishing is a huge step in itself – as such mandates may be the only way of getting around the high pressure academic publishing environment that often pushes (ie., forces) academics to publish in closed journals, based on impact factor and reputation, etc. And regarding the central repository – unlike Mendeley, SSRN etc, there is no question of a giant publisher acquiring this central repository since it would be a government repository.
One Nation, One Subscription
The most notable feature of the policy is the call for one centrally negotiated subscription which will enable access to “all individuals in India”. While this would have huge repercussions, the draft policy currently doesn’t elaborate on much. The whole provision is reproduced below:
“The Government of India will negotiate with journal publishers for a “one nation, one subscription” policy whereby, in return for one centrally negotiated payment, all individuals in India will have access to journal articles. This will replace individual institutional journal subscriptions.”
It is laudable that such a radical proposal is being considered in a way that makes clear that the research communities’ concerns regarding access and excessive subscription fees have been heard. While this, if successfully implemented, would be a game changer for researchers in the country, a lot depends on how large the theory-practice gap is when this provision is sought to be converted from paper to practice. As noted in an earlier post – there is a strong need to question why so many people need to depend on shadow libraries in the first place – and this policy proposal goes right to the heart of that question – but in its current limited form, leaves many other questions open.
Firstly – would journal publishers be open to such a proposal? While it would certainly make their job easier to just negotiate with one bulk governmental consumer, would it make business sense (read: profit maximisation) for them to provide access to ‘all individuals in India’ at one price? On the other hand however, is the fact that access to top scientific journals is an inelastic demand – i.e., at the end of the day, institutes need access to this if they want their researchers to be internationally relevant. And at this unprecedented scale of India-wide subscription level – will this end up with the Government just paying whatever ridiculous price the journals put forth? (relevant – see here and here). Another question is who will decide which journals are worth subscribing to, now? This is especially relevant since it also says this will replace individual institutional journals. (This would be presumably be more problematic in social sciences, where various other considerations could come into the picture but perhaps a less troubled, even if still a tedious issue within STEM sciences). Given market dynamics – if an individual / private institute wants/needs to subscribe to a journal outside of the government selected ones – is there a chance that these (non-subscribed) journals will now become even higher priced, since the only ones who go after them, will presumably have a higher demand for them?
Regardless, much of the direction of this policy marks significant progress by the Indian government towards a culture of greater / open access. It also shows an understanding that public funded research is meant for the public (see here and here), as well as a desire to reach into the vast catalyzation potential that such access would provide. It now remains to see whether the next step of converting this to the implementation stage is one which is feasible or not.
The Consultation Process
The consultation/ public participation in the background of the policy merits appreciation independent of the policy document. The policy discloses that close to 300 rounds of negotiation has occurred for its formation, since May 2020 till date. The participative model behind the policy is based on four interdependent tracks.
The independent organization Science Policy Forum (SPF) led the Track I initiatives and devised six instruments for fulfilling the commitments therein (more about these instruments can be found here).
Additional notes
The Open Science portion of the document also touches upon other important aspects, even if only briefly. It looks at infrastructural needs of the community by calling for libraries at public funded universities to be accessible to the public without undue hassle. It further endeavors to make ‘learning spaces’ universally accessible, “especially for people with special needs” and also seeks to enable the right of attribution, preservation and translations (especially in regional languages) of the publicly funded educational resources. The policy further highlights the need to improve awareness and accessibility of the Indian journals internationally, as well as the issue of predatory journals in India. To that extent, the limited text in the draft policy does seem to reflect a well rounded understanding of the problems of access in India. However, the devil is often in the details, and only when those details are available, will we know if the solutions also reflect an understanding of these problems. As mentioned above, the draft policy is laudable for its initiative to rattle the cage, however it is yet to be seen if the proposed ‘maverick-esque’ solutions have the needed teeth to take the proposed bite.
Source: SpicyIP, 4/01/21
On January 7, 2021, the union Education Minister Ramesh pokhriyal nishank inaugurated at today virtual International Akhand conference EDUCON 2020. Theme: envisioning education for transforming youth to restore global peace. The conference is organised by Central University of Punjab and global Educational Research Association .
On January 6, 2021, the cabinet committee on economic affairs shared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the proposal of department for promotion of industry and internal trade. The DPIIT proposed for the central sector scheme for Industrial development of Jammu and Kashmir.
On January 6, 2021, the ministry of home affairs announced that a panel has been set up under the chairmanship of Kishan Reddy to find solutions on the issues related to language, culture and conservation of land in the union territory of Ladakh due to developmental activities .
On January 7, 2021, the Punjab Chief Minister Amrendra Singh announced a slew of welfare schemes. He also launched a scheme to provide free sanitary pads to high school and college girls. Also he launched the Basera program to give property rights to slum dwellers.
on January 7, 2021, justice Hima Kohli was sworn in as the chief Justice of High Court of Telangana.
On January 6, 2021, the fashion designer Satya Paul passed away at the age of 79. He launched the first saree boutique in India L’Affaire.
The Ministry of statistics recently announced that the gross domestic product of India will shrink by 7.7 % in the financial year ending March 2021. Accordingly, the agriculture is projected to grow at 3.4 %, manufacture sector is to contract by 7.4%, transport, hotel and trade are projected to contract by 21.4%.
on January 7, 2021, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated 306-kilometre Rewari-Madar section of Western dedicated freight corridor.
on January 7, 2021, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first double stack long haul 1.5 km train hauled by electric traction.
after Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh telangana has become the third state to successfully undertaken the urban local body reforms stipulated by the Ministry of Finance. It has become eligible to mobilize additional financial resources of 2508 roads of rupees through open market borrowings.
Four people died as supporters of President Donald Trump violently attacked the US Capitol.
on January 7, 2021, joint session of US Congress formerly certified the electoral victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
the democratic party captured the control of Senate in the run off election in Georgia.
On January, 7, 2021, the NEw York Stock Exchange delisted three Chinese telecom companies.
The US Trade Representative concluded the digital taxes imposed on India, France, ITaly and Turkey against US Tech firms such as Facebook, Google, Apple and amazon.com.
China has denied the entry of WHO team to probe the origins of COVID-19.
On January 7, 2021, successfully completed the test flight of an indigenously developed rocket system named Fatah-1. It is capable of delivering conventional warheads with a maximum range of 140 kilometres.
“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.”
Jack Welch
“सच्चाई का सामना ऐसे कीजिए जैसे कि वह है, न कि जैसा आप उसे होना चाहते हैं।”
जैक वेल्च
On January 5, 2021, the Supreme Court gave its nod to the New Central Vista project. The project includes a common Secretariat, Parliament building and renovated rajpat is switching between India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation fund is to be used for medical oxygen generation. Around 201.58 crores of Rupees have been allocated for this purpose.
An All women NDRF team was recently deployed on the banks of Ganga River for contingency duties in Uttar Pradesh to.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research scientists have designed and developed and non invasive ventilator called Swasth Vayu. It has been recently approved by the Director General of Health Services.
On January 5, 2021, the World Bank and the Government of India signed a 105 million USD agreement to improve the inland water transport infrastructure in Kolkata, West Bengal.
On January 4, 2021, State Government of Tamil Nadu ordered to permit 100% Occupancy in cinema theatres in the state. The decision has created high debate all over the state.
The British government recently appointed Alexander Ellis as the new high commissioner to India. He is succeeding Sir Philip Barton.
Pablo Caesar of Argentina was announced as the head of the international jury of International Film Festival of India. The Other jury members are present from shrilanka, Priyadarshan of India, Abu Bakr of Austria and Rubaiiyat Hossain of Bangladesh.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra to set up TRIFOOD park in the state of Madhya Pradesh .
On January 5, 2021, the World bank released the Global Economic Prospects. According to the report, the Global economic output is projected to grow by 4% in 2021. India is expected to grow at 5.4 % in 2021-22.
On January 4, 2021, the World Braille Day was celebrated.
Union Education Minister Ramesh pokhriyal nishank and the Union Minister of textiles and women and child development Smriti Irani launched Toycathon 2021. It will promote manufacturing of indigenous toys. It will also focus on conceptualising new and innovative toys using local material.
On January 5, 2020 Railway Minister Piyush Goyal launched a fried Business Development portal of a one. Solution for all the needs of right customers .
On January 5, 2021, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated of 450 km long Kochi koottanad Bengaluru LNG pipeline through video conferencing. The plan is to increase the share of Natural Gas in energy sector from 6 % to 15% by 2030.
On January 5, 2021, the hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and pune-based Serum Institute of Technology issued a joint statement pledging to provide covid-19 vaccines to India and the world in a smooth way.
On January 5, 2021, the TATA Power and SIDBI announce their partnership to provide a finance scheme to the MSMEs in solar rooftop segment. According to TATA Power, easy financing is one of the barriers for penetration of solar energy in the MSME sector.
On January 4, 2021, the Foreign ministry of Kuwait announced that Saudi Arabia will open its air and land borders with Qatar. These are the first steps towards ending a diplomatic crisis that deeply divided the regional you was released since 2017. Since the mid of 2017, most of the only land border of Qatar was closed. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE had launched a blockade against Qatar accusing it of supporting islamist groups. Qatar was also accused of having warm ties with Iran .
UNICEF recently announced that more than 371,504 babies were born in India. This is the highest number of births on the new year according to UNICEF.
On January 5, 2021, the Pakistan Supreme Court ordered the Evacuee Property Trust Board to reconstruct a century year old Hindu temple. The temple was vandalized and set on fire by a mob in Karak district on December 30, 2020. The attack has caused International embarrassment to the country.
The Australian coach Bob Brett who trained Boris Becker passed away on January 5, 2021.
It was Roman dictator Julius Caesar who reformed the calendar soon after coming to power in the late first century BCE. But even as the Julian calendar gained popularity, large parts of Europe did not accept it till well into the mid-16th century CE. With the advent of Christianity, January 1 as the beginning of a new year was seen as pagan, while December 25, with its religious connotations regarding the birth of Jesus, was considered more acceptable.
There was also the issue of misplaced calculation on the part of Caesar due to which the new year day often kept shifting. It was only after Pope Gregory reformed the Julian calendar and standardised January
The early Roman calendar was conceived by Romulus, the founder of Rome in the 8th century BCE. Numa Pompilius, who came to power a year later, made it a 12-month year by adding the months of Januarius and Februarius.
But this calendar, which followed the lunar cycle, frequently fell out of sync with the seasons. Moreover, the pontifices, or the member of council of priests assigned with the duty of overseeing the calendar, were often accused of adding days in order to interfere with election dates or extend a political term. 1 as the first day of a new year that it slowly acquired currency across the world.
After Julius Caesar came to power in 46 BCE, he attempted to reform the calendar for which he took the advice of Alexandrian astronomer, Sosigenus. Sosigenus suggested doing away with the lunar cycle and following the sun instead, the way the Egyptians did. Accordingly, the year was calculated at 365 and ¼ days.
Interestingly, Caesar added 67 days to the year 46 BCE so that the new year in 45 BCE could begin on January 1. The date was chosen to honour the Roman God of beginnings, Janus, who is believed to have two faces- one looking back into the past and the other to the future. Thereafter, ancient Romans celebrated the day by offering sacrifices to Janus and exchanging gifts with one another.
However, with the spread of Christianity, the celebration of a Roman God was seen as a pagan ritual in many parts of Europe. Accordingly, in medieval Europe Christian leaders attempted to celebrate the beginning of a new year on a day with more religious significance, like December 25 (Christmas) or March 25 (the feast of Annunciation).
There was also an error made by Caesar and Sosigenus in calculating the number of days in a solar year. The actual number of days in a solar calendar is 365.24199 as opposed to the 365.25 that Caesar had calculated. Consequently, there was a gap of 11-minutes every year, which added up to about 11 days by the year 1582. “This defect was of principle concern to the pope; if the Julian calendar had continued in service, Easter would eventually have been celebrated in the summer,” writes historian Gordon Moyer, in his article, ‘The Gregorian calendar’. Thereafter began the effort to standardise a calendar, most suitable to the Christian life of the middle ages.
The reform was not easy. Pope Gregory assembled an eminent body of astronomers, mathematicians and clergymen for the purpose. The main challenge it faced was that afflicting almost every civil calendar, that of dealing with a fraction of a dangling at the end of the year.
In order to fix the miscalculation of the Julian calendar, Aloysius Lilius, the Italian scientist who worked on the Gregorian calendar, devised a new system whereby every fourth year would be a leap year, but century years that were not divisible by 400 were exempted. For instance, the years 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but not 1700, 1800 and 1900. These revisions were formally instituted by the papal bull of February 24, 1582, setting off a furious debate among religious leaders and scholars.
The religious opposition to the reform was in essence against Catholicism. “This was the age of Reformation; Protestant countries rejected the new calendar, denouncing it as a papal scheme to bring their rebellious fold back under the jurisdiction of Rome,” writes Moyer. He adds that the accusation was not entirely unfounded since Gregory XIII was a ruthless promoter of counter Reformation.
Consequently, the Catholic countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal were quick to adopt the new system. Protestant countries like England and Germany held off till about the end of the 18th century. Some accounts suggest that a riot took place in the streets of England in the year 1752 when the country went on to adopt the new calendar. The last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar was Greece in 1923.
While the European colonies in the Americas adopted the new calendar when their mother countries did, large parts of the non-European world too began adopting it over the course of the 20th century. Japan for instance, replaced its traditional lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian one in 1872, while China adopted it in 1912.
There are some countries, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mynamar, Israel, where the traditional calendar is used alongside the Gregorian one. In India, the Saka calendar which begins with the Chaitra month (March 21/22) is used along with the Gregorian calendar for most official purposes.
Source: Indian Express: 1/01/2021
For a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been full of words. A few have expectedly, been dangerous to health. A word like “unprecedented”, for instance, has single-handedly converted us into a nation with very poor liver health. It has been rigorously proven by an unscientific study that if a person took a sip of a drink every time they read or heard the word “unprecedented” this year, their liver would be shot to hell by now.
Back in 2016, President Donald Trump had famously boasted, “I know words. I have the best words.” But sadly, in this, as in other things, 2020 had him beat. So, as a public service to future historians, here is the dictionary of 2020 — all the words of the year, defined as they are really used, in one pithy, inaccurate volume:
2020 (verb): When you bugger things up beyond belief. E.g. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin 2020’d his career after he accidentally exposed himself on a Zoom work call. (PS: This is a true story. 2020 is a fabulous year for stories of 2020-ing)
Coronacoaster (noun): The ups and downs of your mood during the pandemic. E.g. If you’re loving lockdown one minute — baking bread and happy as a bug — and the next minute, you are missing the office coffee, drinking vodka at noon and weepy with anxiety, you’re on an emotional coronacoaster
Coronials (n): Babies produced after a year of lockdown. E.g: Coronials are the product of the fact that while social distancing was mandated outside, the impact in the bedroom was quite the opposite
Covidiot (n): A person with their brains in their bum when it comes to COVID-19 safety. E.g. Medical tests have proven that sadly for the rest of us, no covidiot is asymptomatic
Fitness/ workout (n): Thirty minutes of getting your heart rate up followed by 23.5 hours spent in the same position. E.g. It’s been important to keep up with one’s routine during quarantine. So, right through the year, I continued to not work out, just like before
Handwashing (v): The No.1 gap-year activity in most CVs in 2020. E.g. Future generations will be shocked to learn that the “Happy birthday” song used to actually be sung at birthdays and not just to time handwashing
Lockdown (n): A period of complete restrictions when everyone’s true hair colour was revealed. E.g. Lockdown was what was needed for a whole bunch of people to learn that “sufficient time home alone” was not the only thing needed to write a great novel
Locktail Hour (phrase): Beer o’clock in the lockdown era. E.g. Is it just me or has locktail hour started creeping earlier with each passing week?
Mid-morning coffee (n): (also known as mid-afternoon coffee) An amazing drink except with tequila, lime juice, triple sec and no coffee. E.g. Let me get my mid-morning coffee, the ideas will really begin to flow when I have that in my system
Moronavirus (n): What covidiots test positive for. E.g. Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, etc
New normal (phrase): What stinks for everyone. E.g. The new normal for this year is to continually get used to a new but much worse normal
Social Distancing (phrase): (also referred to as anti-social distancing) Using lockdown as the perfect reason to avoid everyone you don’t like. E.g. Introverts are desperate for social-distancing rules to be lifted so everyone they live with will leave the house
The Covid-19 (phrase): Refers to the 19 pounds an average person put on during this pandemic from stress-eating. E.g. Remember when everyone used to say the key to losing weight was eating more of your meals at home? The Covid 19 hadn’t struck then!
The elephant in the Zoom (phrase): The glaring issue during a videoconferencing call that everybody feels unable to mention. E.g. I did this afternoon’s meeting in a towel as nothing fits me any more. But I relied on it being the elephant in the Zoom
Toddlers (n): The fruit of your own loins with whom you played hide and seek all through the lockdown, even if they didn’t realise it. E.g. Send help to the parents, rumour has it the toddlers are winning hands down
Vaccine (n): Hope in a syringe. E.g. The vaccine should first be tested on politicians. If they are okay, the vaccine is safe, but if they aren’t, the country is safe
Work from home (Wfh) (phrase): Wearing pyjamas to snack, clean, cook, snack, answer emails, attend calls, snack, etc. E.g. For most right-thinking people, work interferes with the full enjoyment of WFH
You’re on mute! (phrase): The most used words in 2020. E.g. YOU’RE ON MUTE!
Zoom (n): The app you use to prove to your boss that you’ve managed to get out of bed. E.g. Has anyone else forgotten they are on a Zoom meeting with the video on and inadvertently started plucking lint out of their belly button? If not, then me neither
The end (phrase): Not here by any means but hopefully close. E.g. It’s the end of 2020! Things can’t possibly get any worse next year, so they can only get better!
This unprecedented dictionary for unprecedented times is available on order in a classy leatherite bound volume. You can invest in this for the coronials in your life. Meanwhile, Happy 2021. Stay safe, stay healthy and remember — keep the mid-morning coffee close at hand. You never know what the New Year has in store!
Source: Indian Express, 27/12/20
